Christ Triumphant || 

and CHRISTIAN IDEAL 



P. C. SCHILLING, D,D. 



mSSELSL?***** 



00D177a^ S33 



£g: 




Class 

Book. 

Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 
and CHRISTIAN IDEAL 




P. C. SCHILLING 



CHRIST 
TRIUMPHANT 

and 

CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

by 
P. C. ^CHILLING, D.D. 




1917 

The Stratford Co., Publishers 

Boston, Mass. 



w\ 



J5X&333 



Copyright, 1917 

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers 

Boston, Mass. 



nrp o 



EC 23 1317 



The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



§>CI.A48127fc 

/W^S I 



c/O 



©ebtcatton 

TO MY WIFE, DELLA BRUNA SCHILLING, WHO HAS 

EVER BEEN TO ME AN ENCOURAGEMENT, 

INSPIRATION AND AN INCARNATE 

CONSCIENCE, THIS WORK 

IS AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED. 



Introduction 

Since the beginning of the art of writing man's 
path has been strewn with many books of a religious 
nature. They have been uplifting and inspiring and 
have helped to steer thousands of groping, fainting 
hearts to a higher life. But there are many moment- 
ous questions of theology that have been challenging 
and staggering the minds of greatest theologians and 
perplexing the hearts of the whole christian world. 
The author of this book has found the solution to many 
of these vital problems, through his knowledge of holy 
writ; and to those who are fortunate enough to read 
these pages, the mists of doubt and uncertainty will 
disappear, like the fog before the mid-day sun. These 
chapters began as sermons and lectures delivered by 
Dr. Schilling during his pastorates in Texas and Okla- 
homa. The first chapter was the subject of a sermon 
preached in the pulpit of the First Baptist Church, of 
Humble, Texas. It was an extemporaneous produc- 
tion of a sick and deeply distressed preacher and was 
attended with blessed and glorious results. The ser- 
mon attracted wide attention and appeared in several 
secular newspapers shortly after it was delivered, and 
later during the near years, it appeared in a number 
of religious journals, the last one to run the sermon 
before it was incorporated in this work, being the 
4 'Western Recorder," of Louisville, Ky. The sermon 

vii 



INTRODUCTION 

is a theological classic — a literary gem. It is the 
most satisfactory explanation of the wonderful doc- 
trine of Incarnation that the writer has ever read in 
sermon form. And it was written after it was 
preached by the author. He is a peculiar preacher. 
He cannot write a sermon in advance of its delivery. 
Immediately after preaching a sermon he can write it 
verbatim and incorporate all of the leading features of 
phraseology and exegesis that characterized it, but 
every attempt to write a sermon before its delivery, 
has resulted in a literary production that is devoid of 
that unctious power, brilliant thought and thrilling 
genius that characterize the preached sermon. Hence 
the author's writings, sermons and lectures, have 
characteristic ear marks that make them in method, 
structure and thought, entirely distinct and different. 
The author is intensely orthodox and accepts the Bible 
as the "Word of God from the First of Genesis to the 
last of Revelation; however, his position on several 
questions of theology and eschatology, discussed in 
these pages, is not in harmony with the popular opin- 
ion of the general public, touching those points. The 
author believes in a separate state of the dead between 
death and the resurrection, accepting Hades as the 
abode for disembodied souls, the saved and the 
doomed alike entering that place immediately at 
death, the saved however being separated from the un- 
saved — the imprisoned in Tartarus, the former en- 
joying the visible presence of angels and a closer re- 
lationship with Jesus in Paradise. All of these com- 

viii 



INTRODUCTION 

plicated matters are boldly and plainly discussed in 
the chapter on "Heaven." But it will be impossible 
for me to say everything that should be said about the 
merits of this work in an introductory article ; there- 
fore the limitations of space admonish me to bring this 
article to a close, and I can do nothing more than to 
mention one or two additional chapters, giving them a 
passing notice and encouraging the public to give this 
book a careful reading and thoughtful consideration, 
which it so richly deserves. The chapters on "The 
Second Coming," "The Millenium," "God's Greatest 
Creative Act: A Man," "The Resurrection," will be 
read and re-read by an appreciative public, and the 
good these sermons will do, in my honest opinion, is 
destined to attain immortality and live forever in the 
hearts and memories of men. But the chapter on the 
subject of a finished redemption, entitled "The Chris- 
tian Ideal as Expressed in a Finished Redemption ' ' is 
one of the most astonishing, searching, able and com- 
forting articles in the book. In fact, there is not a dull 
page in the book and like the heart of the author, it 
is sparkling with that divine intelligence, human sym- 
pathy and optimism that holds us in its grip until we 
have read every word of it. I bespeak for the book a 
wide reading and a phenomenal circulation attained 
by few books in the last twenty-five years. And I 
freely predict that it will live and flourish as a green 
bay tree, to bless and help, inspire and encourage, gen- 
erations yet unborn, and long after the author has 
gone the "way of the earth and been added to the 

ix 



INTRODUCTION 

fathers," he will speak messages of hope, through its 
gleaming pages, to the nations of the world. This 
book will never die and to the struggling, studious, 
consecrated preacher, who wrote it, and The Stratford 
Company, who have made its circulation possible, a 
waiting world and a bewildered people, should give 
their most liberal patronage and extend a hearty, sin- 
cere vote of thanks. This book, that, like many others 
that purport to discuss similar themes, is not dry or 
prolix in any sense of the word. It expresses the 
truest and highest form of divine romance, stirs the 
imagination, enkindles hope and challenges the soul to 
rise up in the majesty of its divine right, to receive 
the robe of righteousness and be crowned with the 
hope of immortality. It is not a heartless literary 
product, neither is it a brainless theological treatise. 
It has heart and brain and soul. Read it and "pass 
it on." 

T. J. WEATHERALL, A.B. 

Supt. City Schools 
Hartshorne, Okla. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Introduction 


vii 


I. 


Christ Triumphant 


1 


II. 


The Great Commission . 


15 


III. 


God's Greatest Creative Act: A 






Man 


32 


IV. 


Faith In Christ .... 


59 


V. 


Our Home 


79 


VI. 


Pre-Eminence of Christ . 


94 


VII. 


The Second Coming of Jesus Christ 


111 


VIII. 


Resurrection of the Dead 


156 


IX. 


The Millenium .... 


174 


X. 


Christian Ideal as Expressed in a 






Finished Redemption 


208 


XI. 


Heaven 


232 



CHAPTER I 

Christ Triumphant 

' ' Fear not ; I am the first and last and the Living 
One; and I was dead and behold I am alive forever- 
more, and I have the keys of death and of Hades." 
Eev. 1, 17, 18. 

I would to God that we could meditate upon the 
beauty and effulgent glory of our Christ until our 
souls were transformed in the light of His presence, 
being renewed in the power of His personal holiness, 
translated into His image and so endowed with the 
gift of acceptable worship, that we might rapturously 
join the glad acclaim of Dante : 

"0 eternal beam! 
(Whose height what reach of mortal thought 

can soar?) 
Yield me again some little particle 
Of what thou appeardest; give my tongue 
Power, to leave one sparkle of thy glory, 
Unto the race to come, that shall not miss 
Thy triumph wholly, if thou waken aught 
Of memory in me, and endure to hear 
The record sound in this unequal strain.' ' 

There is no speech nor language, sufficient to express 
the admiration of the innumerable hosts of the 
11 blood-washed followers of the Lamb" for Him, nor 
to accurately describe His glorious person. Adjec- 
tives fail, poetic symbols prove inadequate, the almost 

[1] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

infinite thought of the philosopher, the omnipotent 
rhetoric of the brilliant orator, with the luminous pen 
of inspiration in the hand of a divine seer, fail to ac- 
complish more than to sparkle forth in fitful flashes, 
the brightness of "His express image" upon the dark 
horizon of whirling thought. What a picture is 
drawn by the entranced Apostle as he tremblingly 
attempts to portray the glory of the enthroned Christ ! 
Given a brush made of the sensitive jonquils, a paint 
made of irisated glory of the universe, and the star- 
spangled dome of heaven for a canvas, and the most 
talented Archangel that waits before His throne, 
would give up the task in despair. 

"The glory! The glory! around Him are poured 
Mighty hosts of the angels that wait on the Lord; 
And the glorified saints and the martyrs are there, 
And all who the palm-wreaths of victory shall wear. ' ' 

The Death op Jesus 

' ' I was dead and behold, I am alive for evermore ! 
Calvary is the most interesting spot on earth. Its 
dark tragedy holds a magic charm for all men. ' ' The 
nature of Christ's existence is mysterious, I admit; 
but this mystery meets the wants of man. Reject it, 
and the world is an inexplicable riddle; believe it, 
and the history of our race is satisfactorily explained. 
Thus the great Napoleon adds his unselfish testimony 
to the mysterious influence of Jesus, that He exerts 
in every age and upon all nations and races of men. 

[2] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

Tho it is true that He is unrecognized, in a personal 
sense, by multitudes, it is also true that He exercises 
a dynamic power that is felt in all departments of 
human life, generally speaking, and that compels un- 
counted millions of people to obey and adore Him. 
The Christ question will not down • — He is inescap- 
able. 

Richter says : " He is the holiest among the mighty, 
and the mightiest among the holy, has lifted with His 
pierced hands empires off their hinges, has turned 
the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still 
governs the ages ! ' ' Hence it is true, that, tho we dis- 
believe Him — ignore the covenants of mercy — dis- 
regard His invitations to accept Him and be saved, re- 
ject His council against ourselves, despise Him and 
harden our hearts against Him, still from the Cross of 
Calvary He compels all men everywhere, to consider 
His person and His claims, whether they believe or 
blaspheme. Thru His lifting up, all men are made to 
feel the magnetic force of His divine personality. No 
man can listen to the story of His death without being 
drawn to Him. It not infrequently occurs, that per- 
sons who feel no interest in the salvation of their 
souls are suddenly moved to deep penitence, and are 
brought into reverent contrition before Him. And 
others who listen to the same sermon are made to blas- 
pheme and revile the Cross, with its doctrine of blood ; 
nevertheless, it is true that Christ has exercised a 
compelling power on both classes. The one is laved, 
and the other leavened, by the blood. Happy are they, 

[3] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

who are cleansed from all their defilements, in the 
royal bath of heaven's crimson fountain. 

" There is a fountain filled with blood 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins, 
And sinners plunged beneath that flood 
Lose all their guilty stains. " 

The Sinner's Ransom 

He died the just for the unjust! The law was 
perfect and in order to meet and satisfy its inexorable 
demands, it was necessary to have a spotless and in- 
corruptible sacrifice. If Jesus had inherently or by 
practice, or had retained in His humanity, the least 
taint of original sin, He could not have fulfilled div- 
ine requirement, as expressed thru the law as our 
holy, all-sufficient substitute. But he is inherently 
holy and spotlessly pure in nature, word and deed. 
For thirty-odd years He staggered along His weary 
way of suffering, mistreatment and neglect, under the 
heart-crushing burden of the accumulated sins of 
ages, then, finally bowing His benign head to receive 
a crown of thorns, as the token of the world's apprec- 
iation, and arrayed in a mock robe, He was led like a 
common criminal to the place of torture, and hellish 
execution. See the glorious Monarch of heaven die. 
On either side, two thieves pay the penalty for their 
crimes. How wickedness is exalted and righteousness 
debased! Roman centurion, Greek philosopher, Jew- 
ish rabbi and the vilest of earth's depraved children, 
extend the hand of fellowship and uniting in an effort 

[4] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

to rid the world of the best MAN that ever lived in it, 
they rejoice to see Him die. As the innocent blood of 
the harmless Christ flowing from cruel wounds, stains 
the cross and incarnadines the earth, insatiate fiends 
propose a cup of victory, to "The Prince of Dark- 
ness;" and offering an oblation to death, they make 
league with hell, and when the dying Jesus bows His 
noble head upon His spotless bosom, and gives up the 
ghost in obedience to the Will of His Father, their 
shout of momentary triumph rends the vaulted 
heavens, and resounds to the lowest depths of a rayless 
hell, where fallen angels creep like hated vipers, loath- 
ing themselves, and despising the leprous garments, 
that remind them continually of a lost heaven, and 
inglorious defeat at the hands of the guardian angels, 
set for the defense and honor and dignity of Jehovah 's 
vast domain. How pandemonium exults as the ' ' Law- 
ful Captive," delivered for the sins of men is led, 
bound like Samson at Gaza, into the presence of His 
enemies ! The haughty Prince of Hades takes his 
throne. What a roar of malicious, vindictive triumph 
rings from the hoarse-throated demons of the abyss, 
when Jesus stoops to taste the cup of eternal torment ! 
This is the supreme test upon which hangs the destiny 
of all created things or beings. He must taste death 
in the sense of comprehending the real, actual mean- 
ing of eternal torment. This I believe Jesus did. He 
became our vicarious Mediator thru death. By no 
other means would it have been possible for Him to 
meet all legal obligations, as our Substitute. The law 

[5] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

demands eternal punishment for sin, hence Jesus sat- 
isfied in His sufferings the very last demand of it " for 
us." He became sin for us. He became responsible 
for our sins to His father under law ; therefore, right- 
eousness is imputed to us thru faith. His death makes 
atonement accessible to us, and makes possible a per- 
sonal faith that over-leaps the ages, bringing us into 
fellowship with God; it turns upon the penitent soul 
the light of immortal hope and the dream of eternal 
life is realized thru the merits of the Christ of the 
Bible. He must therefore die, suffer ; in fact, take the 
full penalty of our judgment, that we, upon the merits 
of His atoning blood, might obtain remission and be 
saved thru His life. Were He still the victim of hell's 
diabolical plot to destroy Him, there would not be the 
least hope of pardon for men. Yea, heaven would 
have long since become pandemonium and hell's black 
borders would have been enlarged to make room for 
the teeming millions of slaughtered souls, that would 
have poured into it like a flood of putrid waters. 
Thank God, such a catastrophe shall never occur. Ah, 
what new commotion is this that stirs the pit ? Where 
is the Prince ? Where are his terrible cohorts ? The 
"Lawful Captive" has broken his bones. See! He 
overturns the throne and binding Satan, He relieves 
him of his keys and hurls him back in defeat upon the 
sulphurous streets of the black city of perdition. He 
holds dominion over the damned! He wreaks dire 
vengeance upon devils. He is Lord of heaven and 
earth and the invincible conquerer of death and 

[6] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

Hades. He waves the keys in the faces of frightened 
demons, and coming forth shuts the gates upon them 
forever. Fear not ; I am the first and the last and the 
Living One and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I 
have the keys of death and of Hades. 

The Incarnate Son 

This is the mystery of mysteries. In the creation 
man was made in God's image ; in the incarnation God 
was made in man's image. The relation is beyond 
human ken. It was a custom of old for the shepherds 
to clothe themselves with sheep skins to be more pleas- 
ing to the sheep, so God clothed Himself in human 
flesh, incorporating every element of human nature, 
excepting sin, that the divine nature might be more 
pleasing to us. Some one has said: "thru the lantern 
of Christ's humanity, we may behold the light of 
Deity shining ! Incarnation is the sackcloth of Deity, 
but Jesus did not disdain to wear the badge of mourn- 
ing nor was He ashamed to take the body of flesh — 
token of humiliation — for our sakes and the glory of 
His father. I look upon it as being the most compas- 
sionate provision of the Holy Trinity for the salvation 
of our fallen and ruined race. The scriptural state- 
ment, tho brief, is sufficiently plain to justify our be- 
lief of the doctrine. Among the great array of divine 
passages unfolding the glorius teaching, the one from 
Paul is enough for our present purpose, viz ; ' l God was 
in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." I 

[7] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

understand the Apostle to mean that the three persons 
composing the God-head, were harmoniously cooperat- 
ing thru Christ, being united in a form of flesh — a 
human body representative of a race of sinless men, 
that will inherit an incorruptible, perfect, deathless 
immortality in future ages. In Adam, our federal 
head, divine ideals are manifest, even in our fallen 
state we see the eternal purpose of our creator to prod- 
uce a race subject to natural environments, yet im- 
mortal — changeable, yet having the promise of 
changelessness — with whom sin is temporarily ident- 
ified, but the last trace of it is to be removed from the 
universe and its every stain cleansed, leaving us as 
pure, perfect and spotless thru a second Adam, who 
became our personal substitute, viz; the incarnate 
Christ. Thus the purpose of God in the creation of 
men is fully restored and the divine ideal brought to 
pass in the re-adjustment of the disorganized elements 
of the human economy, and the harmonious blending 
of soul and body in a glorified form. Incarnation, 
therefore, serves a divine purpose that could not have 
been accomplished thru any other means, instrument- 
ality or agency, except thru the Son God — and let 
it here be specially emphasized — Jesus was the ONLY 
Son that God had. Adam disobeyed Him and became 
an out-cast and his progeny passed under sin; hence 
so far as the human race and all created beings were 
concerned, God was childless and the human race were 
orphans. The entrance of sin polluted human nature 
and divorced the world from God. It was in darkness 

[8] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

— lost — and there was no acceptable representative 
of the race to be found, who could mediatorily restore 
man to the favor of God, because all had "passed 
under sin ' ' and the moral law — the law of Moses — 
the eternal law of the ages, the only, greatest most bene- 
ficent rule for the government of men and angels, that 
God ever gave, had been flagrantly violated ; therefore, 
God in righteous anger, flashed the judgment of wrath 
in the face of a ruined world and forbade its return to 
Him. Strange as it may at first appear to be, it is an 
indisputable fact, that the universal ruin and sinful- 
ness of humanity provides for the necessity of the In- 
carnation of Jesus, ethically speaking. The purpose 
of the creation included the purpose of incarnation. 
Incarnation manifests an eternal counsel of God, ir- 
resnective of the contingency of sin and the purpose 
of redemption. There was no metaphysical necessity, 
but a purely ethical necessity, for the incarnation of 
the perfect God. This view does militate against the 
idea of "free grace," because redemption thru the 
1 ' Son of God ' ' is not an after-thought or expedient of 
grace, but to be provided for, and made possible in 
the eternal purpose of creation. Not only in the 
divine idea of creation was sin rendered possible, but 
also redemption thru Him, who is the completion and 
goal of creation. Then is it not true that the world 
was made capable of redemption in the same thought 
and purpose that it was made capable of sinning ? The 
incarnation then, becomes a central and essential fact 
in our theodicy. All of God's ways from the begin- 

[9] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

ning lead up to Christ. Recent theology lays more 
stress upon the cosmical relations of incarnation. The 
old truth of the natural headship has a large place 
and a new significance in view of modern theories of 
the origin and unity of creation. The whole universe 
was created for Christ, thru whom all things shall at 
last be made subject to the Father, that God may be 
all in all. The incarnation then, is the process of 
union of two natures — a divine and a human nature. 
' l The Word was made flesh, ' ' says the scriptures and 
this becoming flesh, was real at the nativity. The 
birth of Jesus was the moment of the first actual, 
real, incarnation. It was begun in a manger, but 
completed on a throne. Jesus was made perfect thru 
suffering, because His life was necessary to the per- 
fection of His person, as Redeemer. Jesus Christ did 
assume the true and perfect nature of man, in a per- 
sonal union with His divine nature, and still remains 
true God and real man, in one person for ever. Hence 
the leading facts in the incarnation of Christ are the 
following, viz; (1) It was not a change in the nature 
of the Trinity nor of the relation of One to the other 
Two Persons composing it. (2) The birth of Christ 
making incarnation possible, was not the beginning of 
anything, except the manifestation of God-head in a 
new relation to mankind; hence it was only necessary 
to the accomplishment of an external purpose to re- 
store man to the favor of God thru personal, eternal 
and inseparable contact and union ivith Him. But 
the pre-existence of Christ was absolutely necessary 

[10] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

— so much so, that His incarnation was wholly con- 
tingent upon His eternal relation to the Trinity as 
being the "Son of God." 

The sonship of Jesus is co-extensive with the God- 
head. In the ninth chapter of Isa., the relation be- 
tween the sonship on the divine side and sonship on the 
human side is clearly denned, and it is said, "as a 
Son he was given, as a child He was born. ' ' The idea 
that divine sonship could be produced through an act 
of creation or of ordinary generation is monstrously 
absurd. The divine sonship of Jesus is eternal and it 
could not be created any more than the self-existent 
Creator could produce himself, therefore Jesus must 
necessarily have possessed an uncreated and self -exist- 
ent relationship, as a divine Son of God ; otherwise, it 
would have been impossible for Him to have entered 
into the humble relation as the "Son of man" becom- 
ing the actual and personal human representative of 
man as "a child born." Christ is the marvel of mar- 
vels. C. H. Spurgeon says: "Consider His eternal 
existence, begotten of his Father from before all 
worlds, being of the same substance with His Fath- 
er: begotten, not made, co-equal, co-eternal, in every 
attribute very God of very God. Remember that 
He who became an infant of a span long, was no less 
than the King of ages, the everlasting Father, who was 
from eternity and is to be to all eternity. The divine 
nature of Christ is indeed wonderful. Just think for 
a moment, how much interest clusters around the life 
of an old man. Those of us who are but children in 

[11] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

years, look up to Him with wonder and astonishment, 
as He tells us the varied stories of the experience thru 
which he has passed. How brief it appears when 
compared with the life of the tree that sheltered Him. 
It existed long before that old man's father crept, a 
helpless infant into the world. But what is the his- 
tory of the human race, compared with the creation? 
and what is the history of the creation compared to the 
age of the angel?" They could tell you of the day 
when they saw this world wrapped in swaddling 
bands of mist — when, like a new-born infant, the 
last of God's offspring, it came forth from him and the 
morning stars sang together and the Sons of God 
shouted for joy. But what is the history of the angel 
that excelleth in strength, compared with the history 
of the Lord Jesus Christ ? The Angel is but of yester- 
day, and knoweth nothing; Christ the Eternal One, 
charges even his angels with folly, and looks upon 
them as ministering spirits, that come and go at His 
good pleasure. "By Him all things were made; and 
without Him was not anything made that was made." 
Incarnation represents the lowest stage of life to 
which divinity may be extended in association with 
humanity. But I do not believe in a humanized God, 
neither do I believe in a deified human. Jesus, in 
His divine nature has continually existed. He humb- 
ly died in His perfect humanity, for imperfect human 
beings. Divinity suffered for man, but did not die for 
him. Christ lived in a separate state during the inter- 

[12] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

val between his death and resurrection. "I am He 
that liveth and was dead." 

The Exalted Christ 

Jesus is enthroned above all the powers of earth 
and hell. He holds the reins of authority and power 
in His hands. He has the disposal of all judgments, 
and may, without contravening His authority, pass 
arbitrary condemnation upon fallen angels and rebel- 
lious men. He holds the destiny of every creature for 
weal or woe, as a vested and non-transferable right. 
Whatsoever the Son doeth in heaven or hell or among 
the nations of the earth, has the guaranteed sanction 
of the i ' Father of lights. ' ' He that consecrated him- 
self as the Lamb of Calvary, is exalted to the high 
throne of heaven and will appear at the judgment as 
the "Lion of the tribe of Judah — a Lamb of 
wrath," to take vengeance on them that know not 
God. Let me present to your imagination this picture. 
Behold the transcendant glory! The majesty of 
Kings is swallowed up ! The pomp of empires dis- 
solves like the white mist before the morning sun ; the 
brightness of assembled armies is eclipsed. He in Him- 
self is brighter than the sun, and more terrible than 
an army with banners. Before Him, all the mighty 
princes, the glorious kingdoms, whose power is felt 
and feared thru the whole earth, shall bow in His 
presence and "confess that he is the Christ to the 
glory of God the Father ! " At that period of woeful 

[13] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

catastrophe for the Gentile world powers, our glori- 
fied humanity shall receive an abiding impress of the 
seal of heaven, bedecked with every beauty, and every 
splendor, befitting the heir of an immortal crown, — 
the tenant of eternal mansions and celestial scenery, 
everywhere revealing to the eye, in living myrioramic 
pictures, the combined magnificence of all the worlds 
of God. Mortality will be made immortal and swal- 
lowed up of life and the heirs of redemption will be 
transferred from the terrestial and finite, to the cel- 
estial and infinite sphere of immortality and glorifica- 
tion. The august vision makes us tremble as we gaze, 
and the sublimest reach of human thought, can only 
point — and but feebly too — to its deep foundations 
and God-built stories — its rainbow coverings and 
sunlike splendors — walled with adamant and paved 
with sapphire, crowned with the redeemer, and God in 
the midst. The high circuit of eternity, the scene of 
improvement, and boundless roll of ages — the only 
key to the evolution of un-ending wonders. 

•' * There is no death ; the stars go down 
To rise upon some far shore, 
And bright in heaven's jeweled crown 
To shine for evermore." 



[14] 



CHAPTER II 

The Great Commission 

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost : Teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with 
you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. 
Math. 28: 19, 20. 

The world is made up of harmonious antagon- 
isms. Natural life unfolds itself in form and matter, 
in root and top, in soul and body ; hence there appear 
to be many contradictions, but when we separate the 
apparent incongruous elements and subject them to a 
critical analysis, we are agreeably surprised to find 
that the symmetry and harmonious arrangement of 
the universe, in this blending of incompatible ele- 
ments, must be secured. Variety prevents monotony 
and promotes aestheticism. It takes the scientific 
knowledge of the chemist to extract the medicinal 
qualities of nature's plants, and the superior wisdom 
of the botanist to trace the germinal roots of each, but 
God has so constructed His world as to hold both the 
learned and unlearned, entranced by its grandeur and 
beauty. 

Thus the rich history of human life has a bounti- 
ful fullness of antagonisms. Mortal, yet immortal; 

[15] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

weak, tho possessing almost infinite strength; dying 
but living forever, we are made to tremble before the 
august presence of Jehovah, who girdeth us with His 
power and doeth whatsoever He willeth to do among 
the armies of the nations. 

I am sure that you have been forcibly impressed 
with the distinctness and importance of the four an- 
tagonistic principles in primitive history that pre- 
cedes Christianity, viz : the individual, the psychologi- 
cal, the ethnological and the economic. With Chris- 
tianity itself, there appear four new antagonisms, 
which indeed previously existed, tho not in the en- 
larged sense in which they at present occur, — hence 
the individual is absorbed by the organic, the ethno- 
logical, by the social, the psychological, by the allegori- 
cal and the economic by the cosmical. 

Hence the finished revelation of God, as it is 
presented within the pages of this precious Book, in- 
dicates a divine unity in design. Every incident of 
inspired and profane history very forcibly manifests 
the one stupendous and eternal fact of creation, re- 
demption, reason and revelation, viz : that God, as the 
moral governor of the universe, in His over-ruling 
providence, so directs, guides and manipulates the 
affairs of men and nations, as to accomplish His ex- 
pressed purpose to re-adjust society, eliminate sin 
from the human economy by redeeming the individual 
thru the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus. Thus every 
occurrence, no matter how apparently insignificant — 
even the sparrow that flutters there among the daisies 

[16] 



THE GREAT COMMISSION 

in the throes of death — the crawling worm, or insect 
that was destroyed by your careless tread as you go to 
a place of business or worship — the opening of Jew- 
ish sanctuaries, whose altars run red with the blood of 
slaughtered animals — the elevation of struggling 
empires and debasement of magnificent monarchies — 
the appalling tragedy of calvary — the establishment 
of the church and the shedding of martyr blood — in 
fact, no incident that comes within the range of our 
world's history nor the vast immeasurable eternity 
that rolls before the throne of God, with the consum- 
mation of redemption and the coming of Christ to 
judgment, contributes to the same grand, all-absorbing 
and incomprehensible end. 

According to Isaiah the scriptures present God 
(1) as the God of history; (2) as the God of mystery. 

Universality of the Gospel 

1 'Go ye into all the world/' 

The gospel is specially adapted to supply the 
spiritual demands of all the tribes and races of men 
under heaven. Every condition of human life, from 
the worst to the most favorable; from the lowest to 
the highest, is fully met and abundantly provided for 
in the Gospel of Peace. And furthermore, it is the 
palladium of civilization. I firmly believe that the 
greatness of our glorious Republic is due largely to 
the love and veneration of our people for the Word of 
God, and its moral influence upon the public con- 
science. 

[17] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

The foundations of this mighty nation were dedi- 
cated in a spirit of divine reverence and adoration for 
the Bible, and the sacrificing devotion of the Pilgrim 
Fathers shapes religious sentiment, and their exam- 
ples of heroic consecration and unswerving fidelity to 
the truth, presides like a guardian angel over the des- 
tiny of our civil and religious institutions. 

Starting at Jerusalem (to the Jew first) in the 
determination of the Master, it was destined to flow 
like a river of life, bringing spiritual sustenance and 
redeeming virtue to those who "sit in darkness and 
the shadow of death." 

The gospel is intensely personal. It deals with 
the individual upon the basis of his own responsibility, 
holding him to account for his own sins, not another's, 
presenting Jesus as his only mediator thru whom he 
may come to God and find pardoning favor. Thus 
the gospel singles us out from the rest of mankind and 
deals with us, just as if we were the only creatures of 
the kind in existence. Accordingly it raises a man 
above the conception of a representative of His genius, 
the endless difference of individualities being sustain- 
ed (not obliterated) in the great antagonism of crea- 
tive spirits and receptive communities. The gospel 
therefore, is world-wide and absolutely necessary to 
the elevation, classification and establishment of the 
individual in his proper sphere. 

Some would-be religion founder may object to my 
position, but suffice it to say in passing, that there is 
as much difference between man and man, as there is 

[18] 



THE GREAT COMMISSION 

between the mighty cedar and the dwarf-fir of the 
heath; between the heaven-reaching palm and the 
little holly in the forest. 

Law and the Gospel 

Upon this head a few words of comparison will 
suffice. The law is just, holy, good. It is the synopsis 
of the entire system of divine jurisprudence. It binds 
all creatures from the highest to the lowest-man and 
Arch- Angel to the solemn obligation to serve God and 
live righteously. Unlike the gospel, it deals strictly 
with transgression, acts of sin. It continually em- 
phasises those deeds of violence, that come from a 
wicked heart, but suggests no remedy whereby we 
may be rid of our depraved nature. Magnifying jus- 
tice, it threatens us with the thunderbolt of wrath. 
Faith is not comprehended in its sphere of influence. 
It bears no relationship to mercy. Therefore by the 
"deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified." But 
the gospel honors the demands of the law and meets 
them fully and completely in Christ Jesus who, accept- 
ing voluntarily the judgment of law and dying as 
man 's substitute, becomes the end of it for ' ' righteous- 
ness to every one that believed." The gospel there- 
fore condemns sin and lays it under a severer judg- 
ment than does the law, but it also offers us a sure 
way of escape from present and past sin. And though 
the law cannot by its own force condemn men, neither 
can it deliver them from sin. When the sinner turns 

[19] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

to it for succor, it warns him away saying: "Thou 
hast sinned ! " " Thou shalt surely die ! ' ' Its author- 
ity is confined chiefly to the domain of external ritual- 
ism. The gospel does all this and much more, in that 
it changes the nature and bringing us into mysterious 
union with Christ, sheds abroad in us, by the power 
of the Holy Spirit, the power of godliness, enabling 
us to bear the peacable fruit of righteousness to the 
glory of His grace. 

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. 
The law is the power of God unto judgment. The law 
is weak through fallen human nature, its ethical de- 
mands making our sins more destructive, and our 
damnation more sure. The gospel is strong through 
Jesus the sinless God-man, in breaking down the 
strongholds of sin and saving the helpless penitent 
from the snare of Satan. 

The gospel is the culminating result of divine 
methods, extending through past ages for the salvation 
of men, and is the last and only provision of mercy 
that shall ever be offered to our degenerate race. 

The Divine Instruments of Evangelism 

Jesus lays the commission upon the church and 
says: "Take it to every creature under the whole 
heaven. Ignore all social and political boundaries. 
Walk up and down thru the world, caring for the 
helpless and unfortunate, providing means for the en- 
lightenment of the ignorant, comfort for the broken 

[20] 



THE GREAT COMMISSION 

hearted, healing for the sick and the maimed, and sal- 
vation for all. ' ' The gospel is the power of God unto 
salvation. There are many missionary means and 
methods, but none of them can fill the sphere occupied 
by the church in her relation to world-wide evangel- 
ization as the chief executive, in the kingdom of 
Christ. We should love and honor the blessed church 
of Christ with undying devotion. With us she pos- 
sesses supreme authority and non-transferable sover- 
eignty, and we wait humbly at her shrine, bathing our 
souls in the light of her oracles, covenanting to keep 
the faith for which she stands ; — we unreservedly 
accept her decree and cheerfully bind ourselves to 
carry out all her policies to the best of our ability. 
The church is the most important and useful institu- 
tion in the world. The church — the body of Christ — ■ 
is incomparably glorious in her spiritual equipment 
and her foundations are laid in the depths of eternity 
and it shall never fall, or fail in the accomplishment 
of its divine mission in the world. It is the light of 
the world and without it men must grope in darkness 
and perish without the knowledge of Jesus, because it 
is through the church that Jesus proposes to give the 
gospel of hope and mercy to all the world. The law 
was supported and maintained by institutions adapted 
to its nature and ethical demands, viz : The temple and 
its institutional service and every item of Jewish 
ceremonial worship was divinely instituted, and pre- 
served by Jehovah until the time had arrived for the 
manifestation of Jesus as the Savior of men. And it 

[21] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

was not removed until its mission had been accomp- 
lished. And God who established it, fulfilled the high- 
est demand of its ritual, and furnished the answer 
to its symbolism through the death of his own son. 
God gave it, and He removed it, to make way for the 
world-wide extension of the gospel of peace, that had 
been promised to Abraham in the covenant of univer- 
sal righteousness and mercy that remains yet to be 
fulfilled. The law had its organizations in the temple 
and sanctuary of Israel, so the gospel of Christ has 
for its principle organ of propagation and distribu- 
tion, the church of Jesus. From the human stand- 
point the church is indestructible. If it is ever re- 
moved or destroyed, the God who constituted it, and 
gave His Son to be its royal head, must do it himself. 
It is the crowning glory of all nations. Civiliza- 
tion is an abiding compliment to its divine genius. It 
has come down to us from a remote period of time 
hoary with antiquity. It has withstood the revolu- 
tions of time, and the mutations of fortune — the des- 
olating tread of ages and the downfall of wicked dyn- 
asties — the ravages of famine and the wasting 
scourge of pestilence. It has outlived the astrological 
lore of the Chaldeans, the mythology of Greece and 
the Paganism of Ancient Rome. It has outlived the 
ecclesiastical and political convulsions of the dark 
ages. Its weapons of warfare are not carnal nor sen- 
sual nor worldly, but spiritual, and whenever it has 
been unjustly smitten, with bleeding hands and for- 
giving heart it has offered the "bread of life" to its 

[22] 



THE GREAT COMMISSION 

persecuter. The church is the only institution that 
has ever existed in the world that death has failed to 
conquer. From Abel down to the present time, death 
has held high carnival in our world. He has hollowed 
out the globe and filled it with the generations oi 
past ages. Where are the Antediluvians? Where 
are the Patriarchs ? Where are the builders of Babel 's 
tower? Where are Rome's Caesars and her mighty 
legions? Egypt's thousands and Babylon's millions'* 
They have crumbled into dust, but the church moves 
forward in triumph, marching grandly on to victor- 
ious conquest. And every whither the mind of man is 
turned, for contemplation or faith-inspiration, there 
are visible multitudinous evidences of her miraculous 
achievements in the spiritual and intellectual realms. 
She is the nursing mother of the poor, the widow, the 
orphan, the unfortunate; the leader of the great and 
the teacher of all the world. Institutions of learning, 
from the lowest to the highest, fraternal orders organ- 
ized for the extension of reciprocal fellowship, among 
special partisans, benevolent institutions fostering the 
Christian spirit of the "good Samaritan" and upon 
whose merciful ministration is imposed the precious 
burdens, that come from broken homes or dissolved 
family ties, the unity and preservation of the home, 
civic reforms, the passage of just, equitable and bene- 
volent laws in the municipality, state or nation, the 
maintenance of human freedom and the ultimate pre- 
servation of democratic ideals, — all these depend 
largely upon the patronage of the Church. 

[23] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

The Two Calls of the Gospel 

"0 how unlike the complex works of man, 
Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan! 
No meretricious graces to beguile, 
No clustering ornaments to clog the pile; 
From ostentation as from weakness free, 
It stands like the cerulean, arch we see, 
Majestic in its own simplicity. 
Inscrib'd above the portal, from afar 
Conspicuous, as the brightness of a star; 
Legible only by the light they give, 

Stand the soul-quickening words — * ' Believe and 
Live!" God made man in His image. He endowed 
him with the noblest attributes of soul and body and 
mind, creating in him divinest hopes, placing him 
amidst environments whose physical charms lured 
Angels from heavenly mansions — Eden that sacred 
spot, where first rang out in gentle symphonies of 
life, benedictions of mercy and sternest rebukes of 
wounded jlove, — the voice of the eternal Gojd. I 
like to think of human nature as one vast temple, 
glorious in her ruins. Let us draw the curtain for a 
moment upon the drama of life, in its present at- 
titude of heartrending tragedies, soul crushing catas- 
trophies, and in imagination seek the silent shades of 
a lost paradise. Here the scene changes. No pen can 
describe this picture. No eloquent orator can do it 
justice. Time's early morn envelopes us in swaddling 
bands of mist crimsoned with the light of dawn, as it 
steals from beyond the eastern hills in glory. Tree- 
top warblers make the welkin ring with the melody 
of their innocent lay. The soul is transfixed with 

[24] 



THE GREAT COMMISSION 

rapture. The heart is filled with joy as we view 
with entranced vision the beatific prospect, the tri- 
une God sheds the halo of His presence upon us; the 
star-decked gates of the infant creation swing wide 
to make way for the coming of angelic companions, 
and billows of adoring love sweep o'er us. We close 
our eyes in perfect peace and fall asleep on the bosom 
of the infinite. Human nature, the culminating work, 
the supreme product of divine creative genius, stands 
forth in lofty grandeur sparkling with myriad lights 
enkindled upon its sinless altars by its Maker and 
Builder, eclipses the glory of the garden with its re- 
splendent beauty. But we are not permitted to 
slumber long in blissful repose upon the bosom of 
paternal Diety. A sudden convulsion of nature, and 
we are awake in terror to a realization of the awful 
holocaust that wrenches us from the grasp of Him, 
whose presence is our life and joy. The secret of 
this awful ruin is not far to see. Man sinned. God 
was willfully insulted. He withdrew and gave the 
tempest of sin, that rose from hell, the right-of-way, 
and human nature fell before its destructive blasts. 
The source of human nature was corrupted. And 
in the breaking up of the divine order, its spring was 
transferred from the glory-capped hills of Zion to 
the valley of Hinnom where sin's slain carcases rot in 
eternal misery. Man died then and is still dead under 
law. But God remembered us in great mercy, and in 
order to relieve us from the results of sin, and cancel 
our voluntary transgressions, He devised the most 

[25] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

compassionate and merciful method for our redemp- 
tion that his loving, broken heart could originate. He 
gave us His son as a peace-offering ; His only son as a 
sacrifice for sin, providing a means for the com- 
munication of the story of His death for all people, 
in every age, until He should come again. The gos- 
pel, — the divine promise of mercy, like a star flung 
from heaven into the bosom of the enveloping gloom, 
hangs solitary and bright upon the horizon of our 
darkened world. Its ^ve points luminous with hope 
for lost men, cast its encrimsoned rays athwart the 
benighted pathway of men today, viz; "The seed 
of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." As 
the ages passed, star after star of prophecy was born 
and types and emblems of promise glittered in the 
ebon vault of a ruined world, until for very multitude 
the laughing lightnings, catching the voice of calvary 
and the light of hope from Joseph's new tomb, has 
thundered the seven-hued rainbow of mercy, through 
the accumulated darkness of ages, causing abundant 
showers of sparkling rays of grace to fall upon the 
abodes of disobedient men. From the beginning of 
time to the present moment, with its stupendous 
obligations, it has strewn the sparkling symbols of 
love upon the stream of time and planted Forget-Me- 
Not's of love upon both of its shadow-haunted shores. 

"The gospel's glorious hope: 
Its rule of purity, its eye of prayer, 
Its feet of firmness, on temptation's steep 
Its bark fails not, mid the storms of death. ' ' 

[26] 



THE GREAT COMMISSION 

Do you ask, what is the gospel ? It is divine life from 
God. It is a Christian as well as a divine life ; a life 
that comes from Christ as our Redeemer, as God-man 
and Mediator. It is a pure and holy life. It is an 
active, laborious, and fruitful life. It is a generous 
life that disdains littleness in human character and 
mean things in human conduct, it cannot feed upon 
earth and ashes. It is a devoted life, sacred to God 
in Christ Jesus. In a word, it is an immortal, eternal 
life. Hence, it is passing strange that men can listen 
to the mere recital of the tragic death of Jesus, with- 
out being melted to penitential tears. But such is 
the case. Men visit the place of worship every Sab- 
bath and hear very patiently the word preached by 
some earnest babbler ; but they do not believe. Why ? 
Because the gospel is powerless to save thru the 
preacher. He extends an invitation to you, to accept 
Christ. You appreciate it but do not heed it. You 
cannot. This result is characteristic of the general 
call of the gospel which is to the whole world. But 
again He preaches the same old truth, that Jesus 
saves. You have heard it oft-times before. You are 
strongly affected. Your soul is pierced with many 
sorrows. Your grief is unstayed. Your sins roll with 
crushing force upon you. You are comfortless, for- 
lorn, miserable, forsaken! Ah! This is the special, 
effectual call of the gospel. Resist it if you may and 
as you will, but you will be brought to terms of peace, 
and you will sue for mercy saying, like the Publican 
of old: "God be merciful to me a sinner.' ' When 

[27] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

God thus comes to the rescue of his word, the hard- 
ened sinner is convicted, the penitent saved and the 
prodigal reclaimed. It is the power of God unto sal- 
vation. This is that glorious gospel that saves, re- 
claims, sanctifies and preserves men in the way of 
righteousness, that leads to glory and to God. Hence 
it gives us great joy to acknowledge that we believe it, 
admire and love its teachings, more than the gold of 
Ophir or the glittering treasures of the Indies. 

Universal Peace 

Christianity is a social religion. The church is 
the only distinct fraternity in the world. Regenera- 
tion is the only and true source of brotherhood. The 
Holy Spirit, through the truth, seeks to unite the 
broken fragments of society in an indestructible cove- 
nant of unselfish interest and love. He directs us 
when we allow Him to do so, in a course of pure dis- 
interested service, of loving sacrifice and self-denial. 
The teaching authority of the church is strictly super- 
vised by Him. He is the minister of the sanctuary, 
offering the sprinkling of Christ's blood for the heal- 
ing of the nations. He is the penitents' effectual ac- 
cess to Jesus. He is the Christian's unerring Para- 
clete. Applying the preached words to the souls of 
men He speaks to us of Jesus, peace, universal 
brotherhood, and the Sabbath of eternal rest, — of that 
day of glory and emancipation for the earth-cloyed 
hosts of redemption, when wars will cease, — all strife 

[28] 



THE GREAT COMMISSION 

will end and the reunited members of our race, re- 
stored to the divine favor of our heavenly father, 
thru the second Adam, shall walk in the integrity of 
our spirit-filled hearts and dwell in peace and security 
forever. Soul transporting prospect! 

You say I dream. Is it an Utopian vision ? Nay, 
brother! The most exaggerated description of the 
latter day glory, is abundantly sustained by the word 
of God. The impending storm of judgment gathers 
like a pall of doom on the brow of time's last day. 
The world is hushed and silent, being terror-stricken. 
Men's hearts fail for fear, — looking for the desolating 
holocaust that is coming upon them. The storm of 
wrath breaks in fury o'er the world. Anti-Christ 
and his wicked hosts lift their hands in horror and beg 
the rocks and hills to fall on them, that they may be 
concealed from the "face of him that sits on the 
throne." The lightnings of vengeance cleave the 
moral darkness of the world with forked flame. Now 
the dark cloud rolls muttering towards Jerusalem and 
casts a shadow of mourning and lamentation upon 
the souls of Anti-Christian hosts, gathered in the 
valley of Megiddo. Avenging angels descend upon 
the hills of Judea, once again in the special honor of 
Jesus, and with drawn swords and upon the authority 
of Jehovah to wreak eternal vengeance upon the op- 
ponents of the cross, eliminate sin and drive Satan 
from the world. And now the judgment of nations 
is ended and the shadows of accumulated ages of sin- 
ful dominion pass away, and the "Son of righteous- 

[29] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

ness rises upon the scenes of desolation and ruin with 
healing in his beams. The glorified forms of countless 
millions, who were redeemed by His grace and who 
now abide in His presence, shine resplendent with a 
lustrous beauty that eclipses the sun, and drives every 
shadow from the face of the world. In that day re- 
deemed souls will shine brighter than the stars and 
every floweret and shrub, leaf of tree, blade of grass 
hung with a reflected light of the glorified saint, will 
shine brighter than the cluster of jewels in Gol- 
conda's crown. The music of a lost Paradise will be 
restored to nature, and the birds of the earth will re- 
new their melodies and the beasts of the fields, enchant- 
ed by the magnetic influence of the "Sons of God,'' 
will enter the carnival of joy and peacefully abide 
in the presence of the triumphant Jesus. The flowers 
of the meadow will become intoxicated with their own 
fragrance. I look forward to that time with joy and 
on the wings of imagination I am transported to 
the far-future scene, and behold as through the glass 
of special inspiration, the irrisate glory that belts the 
world; and my heart beats high with hope that in 
the coming years every shadow that falls athwart the 
souls of men, and every storm that hangs upon the 
horizon of nations, shall flee away and the cataclysms 
of war, disruptions of nations, and confusion of heart 
and the distrust of our kind will flee away — that the 
time shall come when the human race shall be one 
universal brotherhood and the gospel of Jesus shall 
have its triumph in the salvation of countless millions 

[30] 



THE GREAT COMMISSION 

— when there shall be neither a millionaire nor a 
mendicant, neither a master nor a servant — but all 
shall be equal, blest, god-like and rich in the glorious 
immortality vouchsafed us in the gospel. 

"Ok! let me glow beneath those sacred 

beams, 
After Thou bathe me in those silver streams; 
To Thee alone my sorrows shall appeal; 
Hath earth a wound too hard for heaven 

to heal?" 



31] 



CHAPTER III 

God's Greatest Creative Act: 

A Man 

"How poor, how rich, how object, how august, 
How complicate, how wonderful is man! 
How passing wonder He, who made him such! 
Who centered in our make such strange extremes! 

From different natures marvelously mix'd, 
Connection exquisite of distant worlds! 
Distinguished link in being's endless chain! 
Midway from nothing to the Deity! 
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt! 

Tho sullied and dishonored, still divine! 
Dim miniature of greatness absolute! 
An heir of glory! A frail child of dust! 
Helpless immortal! Insect infinite! 
A worm! A God!" 

It requires the work of a Being as great as the 
Bible represents our Creator to be, to make man, and 
no being less than God could have produced him. I 
cannot accept the Lyellian theory of the creation of 
the world nor the Darwinian theory of the evolution 
of man. I accept, without qualification, the monothe- 
ism of both Testaments. God's all-powerful Word, 
His oft-repeated fiat : "Let there be," is represented as 
having called all individual creations into being. The 
enlightened philosophy of the present day recognizes 

[32] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

as a fact, on the authority of revelation, that the hu- 
man species came upon this planet solely in virtue 
of a direct act of creation by the Almighty. "God 
created man in His own image ■ — in the image ol 
God created He him. And the Lord God formed 
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life and man became a living 
soul." He did not merely possess it, he became it. It 
was his proper being ; his truest self ; the man, in the 
man. All organized beings have life in common, each 
after its kind. All animals in common with man 
possess life, and man is an animal — the highest and 
noblest of all animal beings— but he is more than an 
animal, because God transferred into man a higher 
gift, and imbreathed even a living — that is, self-sub- 
sisting — soul ; a soul having its life in itself. ' ' Thou 
hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast 
crowned him with glory and honor." Ps. 8:5. Let 
this fact be borne in mind continually, — that God 
is the author of all things, ("for of Him and thru 
Him and to Him are all things : to Him be glory for- 
ever. Amen." Ro. II: 36), but that He created the 
world out of nothing and existence out of non-exist- 
ence (Heb. 11:3, Comp. Ro. 4:17), and that as the 
sole intermediate agency in the work of creation, He 
does not name any mere order of creature, neither a 
material energy, nor supernatural potency, but ex- 
clusively the eternal "Son of God," the personal 
Word, of one substance with the Father, and so really, 
in a personal concrete form the creative "Let there 

[33] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

be" of the first of Genesis. "In the beginning was 
the V^ord and the Word was with God and the 
Word was God. All things were made by Him and 
without Him was not anything made that was made. 
In Him was life ; and life was the light of man. ' ' Jno. 
1:1-4. There is a difference in the display of divine 
goodness in the production of the world and the mak- 
ing of man, in that, when God made the world He 
used His power, but when He made man He used 
Himself — His life — His breath. The Bible therefore 
says that, "man is the image and glory of God, but 
the woman is the glory of the man." Shakespeare 
seems to catch a vision of the divine purpose in the 
creation of man, and rapturously exclaims : ' ' What a 
piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How 
infinite in qualities! In form and moving how ex- 
press and admirable ! In action how like an angel ! 
in apprehension how like a God ! ' ' 
Let us consider briefly, 

The Formation of the Human Body, 

in an earnest endeavor to answer the question : "What 
is man?" Man is a complex being in his unity. In 
personality he is one ; in substance he is two ; in nature 
he is three. He is in no sense an epitome of nature 
but rather the reverse, exhibiting in himself the high- 
est divine ideal that it was possible to be expressed 
thru nature. He was the climax of creative genius. 
In his person he is one, but in the unity of his per- 
sonality he is twofold in substance, both material and 

[34] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

immaterial and threefold in nature, having a body, 
soul and spirit. The body is the lowest part of man's 
nature being compounded of material elements, the 
base of which is dust. It is composed of passive and 
thoughtless organs, arranged for the use of a power 
or powers which it did not originate. Yet it is an 
essential part of man's nature as man, and without it 
he is an incomplete personality, being merely a dis- 
embodied soul. The body is the most exquisitely con- 
structed thing in the material world — the most won- 
derful of all chemical compounds. It is the master- 
piece of God's terraqueous workmanship. All chemi- 
cal elements of nature exist in some form, in the 
physical structure of man. He is "of the earth 
earthy." He is an abridged universe. Man there- 
fore, unlike all other created beings, is midway be- 
tween two worlds and in his tripartite nature, is re- 
lated to both — in his soul nature, to the invisible and 
the eternal, and in his physical nature, to the earth. 
Tho he is finite and subject to change, the power of 
the infinite is strong upon him and endless eternity 
is held in his small nature. Man has eternal capaci- 
ties. He is the miracle of mortality. Gladstone says : 
''Man is the crowning wonder of creation; the study 
of his nature is the noblest study the world affords." 
The inspired Psalmist acknowledged that the omni- 
present Creator provides specially for the best interest 
of the race, that we cannot escape His presence nor 
avoid His power revealed in arbitrary or final judg- 
ment; and he then states the reason why God is so 

[35] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

deeply interested in us : "I am fearfully and wonder- 
fully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my 
soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid 
from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously 
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes 
did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in 
Thy book all my members were written, which in 
continuance were fashioned when as yet there was 
none of them." Ps. 139:14-16. The human body is 
one of the profoundest mysteries in the universe. 
Philosophically speaking, it is a world in miniature. 
Emerson says: "Man is a piece of the universe made 
alive," and Aristotle struck the key-note of being 
when he said: "Man is the metre of all things; the 
hand is the instrument and the mind is the form of 
forms." In this connection it will be pertinent to 
the question under consideration, to specifically notice 
the fact that, as 

A Physical Organism 

man is different from all other creatures. "All flesh 
is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh 
of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes and 
another of birds." I Cor. 15:39. Human flesh is 
different in form, function and nature from all other 
kinds of flesh. There is only one respect in which 
it can be identified with flesh of the lower animals, 
viz ; being finite and mortal it is subject to death and 
tho it can subsist without the nourishment of animal 
flesh, it is so constructed by the Creator as to receive 

[36] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

strength and development thru the use of it. It is 
specially prepared for the habitation of soul and 
spirit. Human blood — ''the life of the body" — is 
unlike the blood of animals. The body, tho composed 
of dust, is a much more excellent fabric than 
earth or dust. Take a piece of earth or a handful 
of dust and compare them to the flesh of man; 
that flesh is indeed earth, but, is it not far better 
than mere earth? And is it not different from all 
other kinds of flesh ? Paul was a great word builder. 
He took three or four words and constructed about 
them one of the most wonderful books of the Bible or 
the ages, viz ; the book of Romans. In the seventh chap- 
ter of this book, he used a word that sheds a flood of 
light on the mysterious formation of human flesh. 
The word is sarkinos and means flesh or fat. The 
lexicographers use the word in contra-distinction to 
sarkikos, which has a pyschological meaning, and in- 
corporates a metaphysical element in its sphere. Sar- 
kinos is purely physical, referring exclusively to the 
structure of the flesh, while sarkikos is the spirit 
that inhabits the flesh, and that rules it thru its pos- 
session of the psychological and metaphysical realms 
of human nature. The Apostle therefore proves con- 
clusively, that it is temporarily identified with the 
redeemed or regenerated people and will be com- 
pletely eliminated from the human body, when the 
saved are immortalized or "glorified with Jesus" at 
His coming, either thru resurrection or translation. 

[37] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

He says: "As we have borne the image of the earthy 
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." Cor. 
15 :49. There are two leading statements contained 
in the text that are perfectly clear to any person of 
ordinary intelligence. Paul uses a form of analogy 
here, that would have been inaccessible to an unin- 
spired writer. The Holy Spirit certainly revealed it 
to him. (a) The uniformity of design is preserved 
and the physical identity of all human species thru 
the "image of the earthy;" and tho no two persons 
are exactly alike, nevertheless the most extreme dis- 
similarity in personal physique does not mar nor 
eclipse the "earthy image." It belongs to all indiv- 
iduals of all races. We bear it — not made in it. 
God made one man, the First Adam, "in His image." 
Now the question naturally forces itself on us, in this 
connection : Did the Creator give Adam a flesh soul, 
when He made him ? Or did He give him a pneumat- 
ikos or Christ-Mind ? God made Adam with a tripar- 
tite nature. He was given a body, soul and spirit. 
No other creature like Adam had ever come from the 
hand of God. God divinely invested him with the 
highest type of race ideals that it could have been 
possible for him or any of his descendants to attain. 
Before the Fall he was, organically speaking, the 
epitome of all individual human beings and if he had 
perfectly obeyed the Creator and preserved the race 
in security, he never could have been superseded by 
any other member of the human race. He was the 

[38] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

divine race-model. He was endowed with supreme 
qualities of nature that could have been imitated, 
but never surpassed, by any of his descendants. None 
could have been better, wiser nor higher, than he. 
The human species would have been propagated thru 
the maintenance, in all generations, of the human 
ideal with which Adam was endowed. Edenic inno- 
cence would have been the crowning glory of human- 
ity thru all ages. Death in any form would be un- 
known if Adam had not sinned. The sin of the First 
Man is exhibited in the decay of nature. Since he 
was the mighty Monarch of the world, the effect of 
his disobedience extended to all forms of life, vege- 
table and animal, and thru all realms and spheres of 
nature, to the utmost limits of his vast dominions. 
The race was on trial in Adam, and if he had not fail- 
ed, the genealogy of the race would have been pre- 
served incorruptible, because no other member of the 
human family could have violated the Will of God as 
he did, for the reason that the test of life and death 
would not have extended any further than Adam. It 
was limited to him. If he had met it successfully, 
death and sin would have never entered into the ex- 
perience of men. The mortal would have become im- 
mortal, and the finite (in the sense of endurance) infi- 
nite, and sin would have never been in reach of men, 
and life in the physical form would have been eternal 
— "the flesh and blood" inheriting the Kingdom of 

[39] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

God ; but Adam sinned away eternal bliss and happi- 
ness for his progeny in a moment, therefore Paul 
says : "Now this I say brethren, flesh and blood doth 
not inherit the Kingdom of heaven ; neither doth cor- 
ruption inherit incorruption. " I Cor. 15:50. The 
foregone consideration is to my mind conclusive 
proof of the fact that God did not include the carnal 
mind, nor any other element of sin or of human de- 
pravity as it exists today in the experience of all 
human beings, when He made Adam. God made him 
as perfect as it was possible for a being, subject to a 
legal test, to be made. He made him subject to law 
and so adjusted the attributes and principles of his 
nature, in harmonious relation with each other, viz ; 
spirit, soul and body, that each one being distinct 
from the other two, was inter-dependent, yet corre- 
lated in harmony and union of being, thus producing 
an "earthly" personal trinity, in unity. But sin 
entered the heart of Adam and despoiled the divine 
harmony of human life — being — and threw the visi- 
ble universe into discord. Sin is the dissonance of 
the ages; the quarrel of eternity. The First Man, 
tho sinless, was a prospective transgressor. He pos- 
sessed a degree of personal sovereignty that enabled 
him to voluntarily, and willfully sin, for his self-grati- 
fication. "And Adam was not deceived, but the 
woman being deceived was in the transgression." I 
Tim. 2 :4. Satan could not deceive Adam. No creat- 
ure no matter how attractive, great or powerful could 

[40] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

have made Adam sin. "For Adam was first formed, 
then Eve," which evidently means, that Adam was 
hedged about with divine protection and regal light, 
so as to make him unapproachable by any being in the 
form of a perversive and persuasive tempter, and he 
was compelled to sin against light and thru his own 
free-will and sovereign choice, and he did it. Tho the 
"carnal mind which is enmity against God" was im- 
mediately incorporated with the central power of 
nature, the soul, and as a consequence it has passed 
thru the race — father to son — from individual to in- 
dividual, as electricity, touching one link in a chain 
magnetizes the whole, and thus has become the uni- 
versal experience of humanity. The "carnal mind" 
is the fruit of self-love. The first sin was committed 
in heaven, and took the form of pride : "not a novice, 
lest being lifted up in pride he fall into the condemna- 
tion of the Devil. " Tim. 3:6. Pride in the heart of the 
Archangel was the product of the same spiritual 
quality that forms the basis of disbelief in the hearts 
of men, Viz; self-love — selfishness. Angels being 
pure spirits, not having soul or bodies, cannot dis- 
believe and there is therefore no way to redeem the 
transgression of angels. Their sins are outside the 
realm of atonement locally, or prospectively. Hence 
they believe in God, but cannot hope for mercy 01 
clemency, thru the substitutional work of Jesus ' ' who 
was made flesh" like the First Adam, but unlike 
him, because the Second Adam having a flesh body, 

[41] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

performed the Will of God, perfectly "without the 
shadow of turning" and rescued the divine human 
ideal, that was forfeited in the tragedy of Eden, and 
became the Federal Head of a redeemed race, all 
members of which were lost in the First Adam and 
many of whom have already been saved, and many 
more are to be gathered into His Kingdom in future 
ages and "saved by His blood." But angels are not 
included as subjects of grace thru the blood of 
Jesus because they do not possess soul natures. 
"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest 
well: the Devils also believe and tremble." Jas. 
2 :19. Referring to a previous question, we find that 
the human or race ideal, ethnologically, as well as 
the divine image, was centered in Adam as the exclus- 
ive pleni potentiary of heaven. This brings us to the 
consideration of, 

Man 's Importance as a Being 

The First Man was a prototype of the Second Man — 
"the Son of God" — Son of man — Jesus the Christ. 
Adam was therefore formed in the image and super- 
scription of Jesus because He was the image and 
manifestation of the Father. ' ' God was in Christ re- 
conciling the world unto Himself. ' ' The statement is 
retrospective, and shows in the dim figures of past 
events, the glory that would have covered Adam as a 
garment, and also his place as the central figure of 
creation, if he had obeyed his Creator and kept his 

[42] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

estate in Eden. If Adam had not sinned, which act 
severed the nexus between him and Jehovah, would 
he not have held the place as Mediator before God, 
for the Race ? If Adam had not sinned and forfeited 
God's presence, would it have ever been possible for 
any one of his descendants (or many as to that mat- 
ter) to commit such flagrant acts of disobedience that 
would have involved any other members, or branches 
of the human family in partial or universal corrup- 
tion? I answer in the negative. It seems to me if 
Adam had not voluntarily involved himself in sin 
with Eve, God would have found some way, consist- 
ent with His "Will, and in harmony with His holiness 
and unimpeachable justice, to have restored Eve in 
spotless purity, to the loving embrace of her husband. 
God could have done this without impeaching His 
unbending justice, or tarnishing His dignity and 
personal honor, because Eve was taken from Adam. 
In the immutable order of creation, the man was 
first formed, then the woman. Paul explains this cir- 
cumstance very clearly and assures us that the ar- 
rangement established by the Creator in the begin- 
ning is the irrevocable rule for the adjustment of 
human relations in the social, domestic and religious 
spheres. "But I would have you know, that the head 
of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman 
is the man; and the head of Christ is God." I Cor. 
11:3. 

The place or sphere of the woman in the order 
[43] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

of creation is therefore, subordinate, dependent, in- 
cidental and she would have never been made if man 
had not first been formed. Woman is the interroga- 
tion point of the universe; the riddle of creation. 
The ruin of the race was not in her power. Her 
authority was secondary, and she was superseded 
and overshadowed by Adam. He was vested with 
the power of life and death. He could have been 
the ambassador of God to men — of the Holy Trinity 
in the earth forever, if he had chosen life and kept 
himself from presumptuous sin. The world was made 
for him. Let it be remembered that the Pre-Adam- 
ite earth was without form and void and darkness 
was upon the fact of the deep. Chaos ruled the 
world. If man could have lived during that period, 
when destructive forces ruled the earth-domain, his 
mind would have been chaotic and God would have 
made the mistake of producing a creature with a 
disordered brain — an insane being, the work of 
Super-Intelligence! But order is God's First Law 
and He called it out of chaos, forming the world for 
the habitation of man. Mr. A. R. Wallace, the emin- 
ent scientist, deals with the point before us. He af- 
firms that the later astronomical discoveries "tend 
to show that our position in the material universe is 
special and probably unique ; * * * and that the sup- 
reme end and purpose of this vast universe was the 
production and development of the living soul in the 
perishable body of man." Speaking of the sun as the 

[44] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

central orb of the stellar system, he says, ' ' our sun is 
one of the central orbs of a globular star-cluster, and 
the center occupies a position very near to, if no. 
actually in, the center of the whole universe." He 
therefore concludes, ' ' of our position in the solar sys- 
tem as regards adaptability for organic life, to be in 
all probability, as central and unique as is that of our 
sun in the stellar universe." A writer in the Edin- 
burgh Review (July 1904) says: "Unquestionably 
the trend of modern research, is to encourage the 
opinion that the solar system is set apart among the 
stars, and the earth among the planets, as if for the 
express purpose of harbouring in safety the frail 
craft bearing the burden of human life." The fact 
that Adam was created from the dust of mother 
earth, the human race descending from him, and that 
Christ, the Second Adam, was born, lived, suffered, 
died and was buried in our world, rising from the 
dead, ascending to the Father and received His enth- 
ronement in the heavens, from our world, is sufficient 
proof of the foregone conclusions, that the world 
is the central orb of organic life and that it was 
formed specially for the habitation of man. He is the 
geometric center of the universe, and his influence 
girdles the globe, the baneful effects of his disobe- 
dience being extended to the furthest limits of the 
visible world. God made him a moral agent, endowed 
him with the power of a freewill, and made him sover- 
eign in the earth sphere. The world and its crea- 

[45] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

tures were subject to his authority and control. "And 
God said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness : and let them dominion over the fish of the 
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, 
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing 
that creepeth upon the earth.' 7 Gen. 1:26. God be- 
stowed upon Adam a distinct honor and one that 
has never, before nor since his day, been conferred 
upon any other creature, in that He committed the 
naming of all creatures in the lower of life, vegetable 
and animal, to him. "And out of the ground the 
Lord God formed every beast of the field and every 
fowl of the air ; and brought them unto Adam to see 
what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam 
called every living creature that was the name there- 
of." Gen. 2:19. Therefore the effect of his sin was 
extended to all creatures and every part of the 
material realm over which he held dominion, and 
God emphasized his importance by bringing His 
curse as a part of the penalty imposed upon Adam's 
original sin. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; 
in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy 
life ; Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; 
and thou shalt eat the herb of the field." Gen. 
3 :17, 18. "For the creation was subjective to vanity, 
not of its own will, but by reason of Him who sub- 
jected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be 
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the 
liberty of the glory of the children of God." Ro. 

[46] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

8 :20, 21. (R. V.) Milton beautifully portrays, in sub- 
lime verse, the truths expressed in the scripture pas- 
sages above, and says : 

' l Of man 's first disobedience and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 
Sing, heavenly muse, that on the secret 
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire 
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed 
In the beginning how the heavens and earth 
Rose out of chaos. ' T 

Oh sin, what havoc thou has wrought in our fair 
world! Thou didst obtrude thine unwelcome pres- 
ence in the sacred precincts of Eden, seduce the fair- 
est woman that God ever made, and thru her be- 
witching charms, thou didst succeed in entering the 
heart of Adam, our Federal Head, and polluting the 
fountain source of life, thou hast sent the bitter 
stream of death thru every human heart and nation, 
tribe and race of men under the sun. Thou art the 
viceroy of Satan and the fawning ambassador of 
death, who has hollowed out the globe, and thou hast 
filled it with thy victims of past generations. Thou 
art the friend of Satan, death and hell ; the enemy of 
man, God and heaven. Thou dost turn the joy of 
revelers into the anguish of remorse. Thou art the 
sting of death that fills the impenitent with horror 
in the dying hour; the black bond of iniquity, that 

[47] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

has left its malevolent impress upon all past centu- 
ries. Thou hast sown the earth down with dragons' 
teeth, and turned the world into an aceldama of 
blood and carnage. Thou hast incited Kings and 
Rulers to unholy acts of ambition, and hate, and thus 
produced the cataclysm of war. Thy upas shadow 
falls athwart the cradles of the world, and helpless 
innocents become the victims of a galling bond- 
age, of an evil heredity, from which they cannot es- 
cape, wars, tumults, riots, calamities, pestilence, fa- 
mines, lost character, ruined lives, withered hopes, 
wrecked homes, broken hearts and death! Death! 
Death! are some of the results of thy fell work of 
vindictive hate, and fiendish treachery, practiced up- 
on the inhabitants of the earth. But the day of 
victory for righteousness, and the complete eman- 
cipation of the world from thy presence and power, 
draws nigh and Jesus will destroy thee root ana 
branch! 

"Ye visions of bright heavenly birth, 

Ye glories of the latter day, 
Descend upon the fallen earth, 
And chase the shades of night away. 

Bid streams of love and mercy flow 

Thru every vale of human woe, 
Till sin, and care, and sorrow cease, 

And all the world is hushed in peace. ' ' 

The entrance of sin in Eden made the tragedy 
of Calvary necessary and the fact that Jesus, the 

[48] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

"Son of God" died for man exclusively, shows the 
vast, immeasurable importance of man. God made 
the whole creation subject to his will and power, and 
gave him dominion over the works of His hands. 
"Thou hast made him to have dominion over the 
works of Thy hands ; Thou hast put all things under 
his feet; All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beast of 
the field; The fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, 
and whatsoever passeth thru the paths of the sea." 
Ps. 8 :6-8. God crowned him with glory and honor 
and placed under him the nearest and farthest — the 
tamest and wildest — the highest and lowest — 
all parts of animated nature on earth, and even in 
sea and sky. But when man rebelled against his 
Maker and fell under judgment, the creature below 
him and subject to his authority, rebelled against 
him. The whole creation was brought under the 
curse of sin, and man the glory-crowned King of the 
world, lost his throne and became the servant and 
vassal of both nature and sin. Thus man lost his 
sovereignty and became the abject and dishonored 
servant of servants, and if his Maker had not 
given him a Saviour, who could restore the pledge 
of unfailing obedience, and become man's substitute 
under law, being "made sin for us," he would 
have been hissed from the presence of his Creator, 
without the opportunity of repentance or the cleans- 
ing mercies of David. But Jesus took the place as 
man's substitute 

[49] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

Personal Representative 

in heaven and on earth. He was the great Antitype 
of the First man and as such offered Himself, a med- 
iatorial ransom for many ' ' dying the just for the un- 
just that He might bring us to God." "For there is 
one God, and one mediator between God and man, the 
man Christ Jesus. ' ' I Tim. 2 :5. God promised our 
First Parents in the garden of Eden, that, a ' ' seed of 
the woman," (one having the form, functions and 
nature of ordinary human beings) should come into 
the world as the antagonist of Satan (serpent), and 
that He would triumph over him, and destroy his 
kingdom in the world. The passage reads thus : 
"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman 
and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise 
thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. ' ' Gen. 3 :15. 
The above statement contains the first promise of a 
Redeemer for mankind, and it also opens the "high- 
way of the seed, Abel, Seth, Noah (Gen. 6:8, 10), 
Shem (Gen. 9:26, 27), Abraham (Gen. 12: 1-4), Isaac 
(Gen. 17: 19-21), Jacob (Gen. 8:10-14), Judah (Gen. 
49:10), David (2 Sam. 5:5-17), Emanuel-Christ 
(Isa. 7 :9-14) , (Math. 1 :20-23) . Hence it is clear that 
Jesus came into the world for the purpose of redeem- 
ing men thru the payment of a price, for the original 
sin of Adam, that all nature might be ultimately de- 
livered from the curse, under which it passed, when 
Adam rebelled against God. "And unto Adam He 
said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of 

[50] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I com- 
manded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it ; cursed 
is the ground for thy sake," etc. There is an extra- 
ordinary passage in Romans, that explains this and 
similar statements that have been previously cited, 
and which reads as follows: "For we know that the 
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together 
until now." The facts regarding power, greatness, 
immortality and importance of man as disclosed in 
the scriptures, prove conclusively to any fair mind- 
ed person that Adam was the central figure of 
creation, and was so intimately identified with the 
visible, material universe that all life, organic and 
inorganic, was directly involved in his transgression 
and upon the principle of philosophic reciprocity, 
passed under the curse that his conduct justly mer- 
ited. The perfection, glory and life of nature exist- 
ed, representatively, in him. He was Monarch of the 
world, and when he fell from his high throne in Para- 
dise, the shock was felt thruout "the metes and 
bounds" of his kingdom realm, and all nature col- 
lapsed, and writhing in pain, rebelled against the 
injustice of her human Lord, and striking back in 
injured agony, defied his power and challenged his 
right to govern and control any orders in the natural 
realm. Every storm that sweeps over the fair face 
of the world, leaving death and desolation in its 
wake ; every seismic shock that makes the pillars of 
nature tremble, overthrowing cities and villages, 

[51] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

destroying peace and filling the hearts of men with 
terror; every eclipse that casts its shadow over the 
face of sun or moon or star, is nature 's cry of distress 
to God, asking for relief from the curse of man's sin 
and praying for complete restoration to its pristine 
glory and peace. And God has provided His Son, 
who is capable of establishing righteousness as the 
universal rule of action for all creatures, and He will 
eliminate sin from the experience of men, banish 
Satan from the earth and restore all things to right 
relations with God thru the overthrow of all world 
kingdoms, and the establishment of the Kingdom of 
the heavens, in glorious triumph on the earth. "And 
He shall send Jesus which was before preached unto 
you: Whom the heavens must receive until the 
times of restitution of all things, which God has 
spoken by the mouth of all His holy Prophets, since 
the world began." Acts 3:20, Jesus, the "Son of 
God" — "Son of Man," has taken the place as 
Mediator between God and man. 

He is God's Ambassador to men and man's ad- 
vocate before God. In order to save men from sin 
and preserve the integrity of the law, to pardon the 
sinner, without contravening the honor and dignity 
of His Father, it was necessary for Him to be related 
by nature, to both God and man, and to be identified 
with both, on the basis of the highest ethicalism that 
His Father could devise, and that it would be pos- 
sible for any human being thru Him to attain. Jesus, 

[52] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

therefore possessed, as the personal representative 
of the human race, a pure human spirit, an incorrup- 
tible human soul, and a perfect, sinless, human body. 
He obtained His human elements and functions, thru 
the ordinary methods of a natural birth, tho it was 
super-naturally produced under the influence of the 
Holy Spirit. He became the "Seed of the woman" 
by birthright and entered into affiliation with man- 
kind as the "Son of man" — "Second Adam," but 
as a "Son of God," He could not be born or produced 
by any act of omnipotent power, but must be "given" 
as the divine representative of God to men. Isaiah 
mentions this fact: "For unto us a child is born, unto 
us a Son is given : and the government shall be upon 
His shoulder : and His name shall be called Wonder- 
ful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting 
Father, the Prince." Isa. 9 :6. Jesus was eternally the 
"Son of God" and as such, was "given" by the 
Father to be the Saviour of men, and to redeem all 
nature from the original curse that was inflicted 
upon Adam. He was "God of very God" and the 
most perfect, model human being that has ever come 
into our world. 

" Jesus whose blood so freely streamed 
To satisfy the law's demand; 
By Thee from guilt and wrath relieved 
Before the Father's face I stand. 
To reconcile offending man, 
Make justice drop her angry rod; 
What creature could have formed the plan, 
Or who fulfill it but a God?" 
[53] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

The Two Adams Compared 

' ' In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely 
die," — were faithful words of warning, and had 
they been observed how different would world af- 
fairs be today! No age would have witnessed the 
ravages of war, betrayal of friendships, nor the des- 
truction of domestic felicity by a human vampire, who 
is so depraved in heart, and morally perverted in 
character, as to consider virtue a shame, and vice the 
crowning glory of womanhood. Sin would have never 
cast its blighting shadow athwart the horizon of the 
world, and disease and death would be unknown. 
Peace, prosperity and happiness would reign supreme. 
But alas ! — 

"What scenes of horror and of dread 
Await the sinner's dying bed! 
Death's terrors all appear in sight, 
Presages of eternal night." 

Jesus is the hope of the world and if men desire 
peace of conscience, tranquility of mind, spiritual 
prosperity and eternal life hereafter, they must peni- 
tently obey Him. God has committed the jurisdic- 
tion of the world — all things visible and invisible to 
Jesus. He has displaced Adam in the order of the 
universe and "the Way, the Truth, the Life," to all 
who believe. All judgment has been committed to 
Him. He is "King of kings and Lord of lords." It 
is interesting to compare the two Adams. The first 

[54] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

Adam brought sin into the world and condemnation 
upon the entire race. Death followed as the result of 
sin. Adam was made holy and placed in a pure en- 
vironment and was given regal authority as the ruler 
of the world. How glorious — god-like — must have 
been unfallen human nature! No wonder angels 
shouted for joy, and the sons of God clapped their 
hands in the ecstacy of amazement, when they beheld 
for the first time, the wonderful creature man in the 
garden, before his glory was sullied by the commis- 
sion of sin! And it is entrancingly majestic in its 
ruins. In its natural state, it is an untilled garden 
of God — a withered oasis in the desert of destiny, 
whose burning sands show here and there, the foot- 
prints, of a long-since departed Deity — a decaying 
temple, whose darkened halls and mouldering sanc- 
tuary retains no evidence of the purpled ease, from 
luxurious wealth, nor one lost note of melody, from 
the lyre of life, reminding us of the majestic power, 
and regal happiness of its occupants in the long ago. 
The evening star peeps thru the crevice in the wall, 
and drapes abandoned altars of sacrifice with a 
sheen of gossamer silver, chasing away the sullen 
shadows, and lingering lovingly upon the faded petals 
of virtue's crimson rose, and while we continue to 
dream, passing further under the power of fancy's 
seven-hued arch, our enchantment deepens, the shad- 
ows fade, and we behold the voiceless organ of being, 
enshrouded in the gray light of a dying day — silent, 

[55] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

dust-covered and deserted. It is no longer instinct 
with harmony and responds no more, in a deep diap- 
ason of angelic melody, or a thrilling crescendo of 
divine unity, keeping harmony with the " music of 
the spheres." I turn from this forbidding prospect, 
to observe that human nature reflects the image of 
God in its ruins. Emerson says : ' ' every man is a 
divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. It seems 
as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world 
as to an asylum. And here they will break out into 
their native music, and utter at intervals the words 
they have heard in heaven ; then the mad fit returns, 
and they mope and wallow like dogs." But man 
disobeyed Jehovah and severed all connection with 
heaven, lost control of his great dominions, the com- 
panionship of angels and involved the world in uni- 
versal ruin. Jesus, in order to become our Saviour, 
gave up His dominions, the companionship of angels, 
and also, "the glory that He had with the Father, 
before all worlds" and entered our world that was 
reeking with corruption ; and taking a human body — 
obtained from a woman — the "Seed of the woman" 
He began to lead the race in victorious righteous- 
ness, back to God, and He will ultimately triumph 
over every foe, visible and invisible, and bring in the 
universal Kingdom of God, and restore the lost Eden 
to the bosom of the world. Death came by man. The 
grave opened to receive the victims of sin. And if 
Jesus had refused to become the world's Redeemer on 

[56] 



GOD'S GREATEST CREATIVE ACT: A MAN 

that most fateful day in Eden, when Adam sinned, 
the grave would have become the end of us all, and 
nature would have been blotted out of existence. 
The soul would have perished in the dust of its 
crumbling temple, and the spirit would have been ex- 
tinguished in the darkness of annihilation. But Jes- 
us became man's surety and promised His father to 
appear in court in future ages as his advocate. Thus 
soul and spirit were permitted to exist in a disem- 
bodied form, when separated from the body in death. 
The First Man surrendered his life, and had no pow- 
er to take it again. He died seeking his own selfish 
aggrandizement. His was the insane act of a suicide, 
but it had a still worse feature, being parricidal in 
effect, and the blow that severed his own head, cut 
the jugular vein of his ancestry. But Jesus in hum- 
ble resignation to the Will of His Father, gave up 
His life for the dead. He had power to take it again, 
and when He arose from "Joseph's new tomb," He 
vanquished death and became the "resurrection and 
the life." 

Thus "by man came death" but by man also, 
came "the resurrection of the dead." Adam vio- 
lated law and brought us under judgment : Jesus kept 
inviolable every tenet of law for us, and "brought 
life and immortality to light thru the gospel." 
Adam was the end of life, and the beginning of death ; 
Jesus was the end of death, and the beginning of "life 
from the dead." The spiritual life that the believer 

[57] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

possesses, is a pledge from God that lie shall have his 
body, changed and made immortal. "Oh death, 
where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?" 

" Beyond these chilly winds and gloomy skies, 
Beyond death's cloudy portal, 
There is a land where beauty never dies 
And love becomes immortal." 



[58] 



CHAPTER IV 

Faith in Christ 

And without faith it is impossible to be well- 
pleasing unto Him ; for he that cometh to God must 
believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them 
that seek after Him. Heb. 11 :6. Pleasing God is of 
supreme importance. It should be the sole object of 
all our christian labor. I read this question in an old 
book: "What is the chief end of man? the answer as 
given is, "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." 
The answer is eminently correct, but it could have 
been answered more briefly and just as correctly and 
with fewer words, viz ; To please God. To please God 
has a twofold meaning; experimentally, a man can- 
not be satisfied or pleased with himself, until he shall 
have succeeded in meeting divine requirements, ful- 
filling the law of obedience according to the will of 
God, and conforming himself in a surrendered will 
and a believing heart, to Jesus for faithful service tt, 
the close of life's fitful day. Paul says : "faith is the 
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
not seen. Thus faith is the revelation of a spiritual 
life wrought by the regenerated power of the Holy 
Spirit, that was previously performed in bringing us 
into relationship with God as "heirs of God and 

[59] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

joint heirs with Christ," enabling us to please God 
through the exercise of a living faith. The import- 
ance of faith then as an evidence of spiritual life in 
the soul is very clear, in that it is essential to the 
presentation of the saved state to the mind, and spir- 
itual consciousness of a Christian. Therefore faith is 
not only essential as a fundamental of salvation, but 
it is also a spiritual grace thru which we please God, 
and enter into the full enjoyment of our saved state. 
It is the source of assurance, and the mainspring of 
soul peace, and without it, it is impossible for any one 
to enjoy and be satisfied with the life we live in this 
world. Jesus gave special emphasis to the last fact, 
when He said: "Come unto me all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my 
yoke upon you, and learn of me and I will give you 
rest." If we succeed in pleasing our Maker we will 
add eternal laurels to our crown and cover ourselves 
with imperishable glory. Abel achieved an undying 
fame and an eternal heritage through faith, and by 
it, "he being dead, yet speaketh, God testifying to 
his gifts." We cannot have God for our witness, 
unless we accept His terms of salvation and become 
witnesses for Him through faith in Jesus. Man then, 
cannot please God without bringing himself great 
spiritual happiness, and an abundance of immortal 
rewards in the next world, and temporal prosperity 
in this. We should continually keep in mind the 
fact that God always accepts the person who pleases 

[60] 



FAITH IN CHRIST 

Him and pours upon His children the bounties of 
grace, causing them to walk under the aegis of His 
protecting care, and benevolent guidance. Pleasing 
our heavenly Father should be the chief concern of 
all Christians and the question: "How can I please 
Him?" should have the first place in the considera- 
tion of all men. It brings the stupendous question of 
Christ and His atoning merits plainly to our view, 
whenever it is presented. There is something very 
serious and solemn in our text: "Without faith it is 
impossible to please God." Strive as we may, give 
our goods to feed the poor, and our bodies to be 
burned, and it profits us nothing without faith. Make 
what sacrifices you choose, be as eminent in things 
lovely, beautiful and of good report among men, yet 
none of these will be well pleasing to God unless 
they are mixed with faith. God said to the Jews: 
"With ail your sacrifices you must offer salt." He 
means by this that we must produce good works 
through faith in Him, and because we love Him, 
otherwise our work will not be work, not being 
mixed with faith, and our faith will not be faith, 
not being mixed with work, because faith works by 
love and love is of God, and furthermore "God is 
love;" therefore, we cannot please God except thru 
the recognition of His divine nature in us, and faith 
is the only element of spiritual life through which 
we are enabled to understand the unfolding of His 
invisible presence in our hearts. Faith is a law of 

[61] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

the spiritual realm and is as old as the first man. 
"When Cain and Abel attained manhood, God gave a 
test that practically demonstrated this law, and 
showed very clearly that in that early age "with- 
out faith it was impossible to please Him." One 
bright day Cain and Abel erected two altars side by 
side. Cain brought the choicest fruits of the field and 
placed them upon his altar, and Abel brought the 
firstling of the flocks, and placed it upon his altar. 
The fire of God descended from heaven and con- 
sumed Abel's offerings, but Cain's was untouched. 
God did not consider the sacrifice of Cain, because 
it was not dedicated in faith. Abel's lamb reflected 
his faith in the substitutionary death of Christ — 
God's lamb. The offering of Abel, therefore, was 
acceptable to God, it having been made in the belief 
of the atonement of Jesus, and as a type of His 
sacrificial death for men. Thru it He was justi- 
fied and His work preserved. Abel had faith in Jes- 
us, while Cain trusted in his offering — his good 
works, depending upon himself to "please God;" 
hence, when he was rejected, he became very angry, 
and slew his brother, showing that there was no 
faith with his works, and his heart was devoid of 
love for God. And we should not forget that the 
same spirit of self-exultation enters into the hearts 
of all those persons who are performing good works 
at the present time, in a vain effort to please God 
thereby, and save themselves from the condemnation 

[62] 



FAITH IN CHRIST 

of sin, and the general doom of the human race. The 
scriptures furnish abundant illustration of their 
folly in the doom of such characters as Cain and King 
Saul and Gehazi and Simonimagus, the last having 
so deeply imbibed a spirit of self-love, that in His 
moral delusions He audaciously offered a bribe to the 
Apostle Peter in exchange for the free and unctious 
and supernatural gift of the Holy spirit. Where 
there is no faith, the heart is perverted and darkened, 
and cannot entertain truth until it is touched by the 
fires of God's holy spirit, and the dross of carnality 
is consumed, and a new nature is generated thru 
the brooding presence of the Third Person in the 
Trinity. Faith cannot exist in an environment of 
spiritual death. There is but one death that faith 
honors and that is, the death of Christ thru which 
event it is perfected. If faith could exist in the un- 
regenerate soul, it would be compelled to witness to 
the tragedy of eternal death, and perform the sad 
office of funeral director and undertaker for the dead 
soul. But faith is a living principle, and must have 
an atmosphere and spiritual surrounding consonaBt 
with its nature, and in harmony with its testimony, 
or it must forever remain dumb, because when it 
speaks, it must witness thru Jesus, "who was made 
alive from the dead." Jesus is the author and the 
finisher of faith. He originated it, by working spir- 
itual changes in the hearts of men, in every age from 
Abel to the time of his own personal manifestation 

I 63 ] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

to Israel, and implanting in their hearts a personal 
knowledge of Himself as the Savior of the world 
thru the shedding of blood. He finishes or completes 
the nature of faith, in making it harmonize and ex- 
plain His work in our hearts, and also in the sense of 
satisfaction that the soul experiences in accepting 
the atonement of Jesus. "Without the shedding of 
blood there is no remission." Faith loves the shed 
blood of Jesus — it is a product • — a ripe fruit, that 
springs up in the heart from the regenerated flowing 
of the blood, thru the souls of men for the cleansing of 
sin. Faith accepted as inevitable and unavoidable, 
the death of Jesus Christ, and wept in sorrow over 
the tomb of Joseph, keeping the light of immortal 
hope glimmering upon the horizon of a lost world, 
and when Jesus burst asunder the bands of death 
and arose from the dust of the tomb, faith gathered 
about it the waning energies of broken hearts, and 
filled the souls of men with a triumphant hope of a 
resurrected life, and put a new song in the heart 
of a struggling church and a new hymn of praise 
upon the lips of believers in every age, even thanks- 
givings to our God. "All things are possible to him 
that believeth. Unto you that believe He is pre- 
cious." Faith makes Jesus precious and real to 
the soul. Historically speaking, we believe concern- 
ing men of genius, the poets, the artists, the authors, 
the orators, who have greatly influenced their fel- 
low-men, that their gifts and mental talents, with all 

[64] 



FAITH IN CHRIST 

the circumstances that contributed to their personal 
developments, were so ordered and directed by the 
Lord Jesus as to qualify them for the part they were 
to play in the destiny of human affairs. But it is 
impossible for us to realize the presence, in our af- 
fairs in a personal way at least, of any one of the 
great characters who have played some part in the 
drama of life, but who have passed from this world's 
stage of action, tho we fully believe, and with all the 
earnestness and sincerity of our souls, that they were 
endowed with an immortal nature, and are living to- 
day somewhere in the unseen realms of eternity. And 
the only person who has ever lived in our world, en- 
dured its trials, suffered its unjust afflictions, loved 
it, was true to it, died for it, finding a resting place 
in its bosom, arose from its embrace of death and 
ascending to the other world, left behind him a 
spiritual gift and an ennobling trait of character, 
viz : Faith thru which it is possible for men to realize 
His presence consciously, at all times and under all 
the distressing circumstances, and in all the trying 
vicissitudes of life. Madame Swetchine says: " Faith, 
amid the disorders of a sinful life, is like the lamp 
burning in an ancient tomb." I heartily commend 
the elegant statement of faith from the pen of the 
brilliant Montf ord, viz : ' ' The light of genius is some- 
times so resplendent, as to make man walk thru life, 
amid glory and acclimation ; but it burns very dimly 
and low, when carried into "the valley of the shadow 

[65] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

of death." But faith is like the evening stars, shin- 
ing into our souls the more brightly, the deeper the 
night of death in which they sink." 

Faith Defined 

The great Napoleon expresses his ideas of the 
power of a living faith in the following words, viz : 
"all the scholastic scaffolding falls as a ruined edi- 
fice, before one single word, — faith!" The blind 
poet Milton in the following sublime phrases, testi- 
fies to the power of faith, as the truest and most 
abiding vision that the soul has of eternity and de- 
clares, "0 welcome pure-eyed one, for this Faith, 
white-handed Hope, thou hovering angel, girt with 
golden wings!" Doctor Geo. A. Loften explains the 
matter of faith very clearly, in its relation to atone- 
ment, in the expression: "By His incarnation and 
atonement Christ went down into the depths of 
humanity and hell to save us; and we must really 
get into Christ and He into us, in order to reach His 
life, ratify His atonement and appropriate His right- 
eousness." Hence faith must be rationally the inex- 
orable law of our union with Christ, or of our salva- 
tion by grace. According to Paul's view of salvation 
it has three distinct phases, viz ; eschatotological, cos- 
mic, and dynamic. It is eschatotological because it 
means, fundamentally, God's deliverance of man 
from the impending wrath, His transforming of them 

[66] 



FAITH IN CHRIST 

into His own likeness and nature, and His sharing 
with them His functions as ruler and judge of the 
universe. All these experiences pertain to the future. 
It is cosmic and dynamic, because, in order for God 
to accomplish these results, it was necessary for Him 
thru the exercise of superhuman power, to rescue 
men from the evil powers of the cosmos. As long as 
men are under the domineering control of Gentile 
world-power, they are the victims of impending wrath, 
and subject to the judgments that will be directed 
against the cosmos or world-power, at the close of this 
age. 

Many superficial readers of the scriptures do not 
understand that all persons of every race and kin- 
dred and tongue, and all characters of evil doers, 
and disbelievers, without any exceptions, are identi- 
fied with the Gentile world-powers, and are subject 
to the avenging judgments that God has in reserva- 
tion for them ; and that on the other hand, all believ- 
ers are personally incorporated with all divine move- 
ments that God has embraced or inaugurated for 
the evangelization of the world, and the salvation of 
the elect, in the Gentile Dispensation. At the feast 
of the Passover, in answer to certain Greeks who 
sought an interview with Him, He said: "The hour 
is come that the "Son of Man" should be glorified. 
Verily, Verily, I say unto you except a corn of wheat 
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : but if 
it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." Jesus did not 

[67] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

receive these Gentiles, the Greeks, but His words 
quoted above had special reference to them at that 
time, and to all classes of people in succeeding ages, 
who were to be classed cosmically, as Gentiles. 
Christ in the flesh, King of the Jews, could not dur- 
ing His personal ministry be an object of faith to the 
Gentiles tho the Jews should have believed on Him, 
as Messiah and their King. For the Gentiles were as 
a corn of wheat that falls into the ground and dies ; 
so Christ must be lifted up on the cross and believed 
in, as a sacrifice for sin, as ' ' Seed of Abraham, ' ' and 
not David. Paul sheds a halo of light on the intri- 
cate point involved in the previous statement, and 
it is worthy of notice here : "And the scripture, fore- 
seeing that God was justifying the heathen thru 
faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, 
saying, In thee shall all nations be blest. So then 
they which be of faith are blest with faithful Abra- 
ham.'' Dr. Vance's statement of faith is pertinent, 
viz: "A man's faith is the essential condition of all 
that God seeks to develop within and confer upon us. 
He wants us to have hope, but hope is impossible 
without faith. We are saved by hope but hope that 
is seen; that is, hope that lacks faith is not hope. 
Thus faith is back of everything that God seeks to 
develop in us, and to work out thru us as consecrated 
human instrumentalities. 

"Take Thou my hand; 
Take it! Thou knowest best 

[68] 



FAITH IN CHRIST 

How I should go, and all the rest; 
I cannot, cannot see; 
Lead me, I hold my hands to Thee 
I own no will /but Thine ; 
Make Thy way mine." 

Faith gives God his opportunity with man, and 
gives man his acquisition of God. And faith in all 
of its varying degrees, from the lowest to its highest 
development, and from its weakest to its greatest 
strength, is a man's estimate of God. Then, what 
is faith? It is a simple word, any child can spell it, 
but it has a compound meaning that is very difficult 
and complicated, and almost incomprehensible. 
Many scholarly men possess faith, but cannot ex- 
plain it clearly. They believe, but cannot tell how 
they do it. Suppose a penitent sinner were to ask 
you how to believe and to tell him the real meaning 
of faith, what would your answer be ? Oh, you say : 
"I bad not given that matter any thought. I know 
that I believe in Jesus and that I have a glorious 
experience of divine grace. I am perfectly satisfied 
that He has saved me from my sins. Here I let 
questions about faith rest, and do not perplex my 
soul, in an effort to unravel them" — very good. 
But still it has a meaning, that is accessible to any 
ordinary Bible reader. Hodge, in his "Outlines," 
(and he follows the Church Fathers), in my opinion, 
gives the clearest and most succinct definition of faith, 
that I have ever read. Faith, as a religious belief, 
embraces the essential and fundamental teachings of 

[69] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

both Testaments. It is composed of three distinct spir- 
itual elements, viz; (a) knowledge; (b) assent, and 
(c) trust. God does not require faith of any one that 
has no ability or means of uderstanding. Infants and 
idiots are saved without faith, tho neither, the infant 
or idiot, could enter heaven in the natural state, hence 
they are changed or spiritually transformed at death. 
Regeneration is God's exclusive method of imparting 
divine life to a natural soul. So, irresponsible per- 
sons are saved by grace without faith, and responsi- 
ble ones are saved by grace thru faith. Christ says : 
"Ye must be born again." Regeneration evidently 
precedes faith, while repentance, in the order of salva- 
tion, comes before the new birth. Men capable of 
being instructed in the things concerning the king- 
dom, are commanded to repent. Repentance is God's 
only provision of mercy for a person condemned un- 
der law. It is the recognition of an awakened soul 
seeking to return to God, and at the same time ac- 
knowledging in his own heart the righteous verdict 
of the law, and his deserved banishment from the 
presence of God. Repentance is towards God — 
always having God under consideration as the 
Supreme Judge of the earth, and His terrible wrath 
continually in the purview of His eternal destiny. 
Repentance is therefore never towards Christ, be- 
cause He is our substitute and voluntarily meets our 
penalty, and dies for the absolution of our sins, under 
the law, hence Paul says, "repentance towards God 

[70] 



FAITH IN CHRIST 

and faith in Jesus Christ." Hence, one cannot be- 
lieve in Jesus until repentance has been exercised 
for transgressions of the law and in obedience to 
God, as Creator, and judge, and neither can one exer- 
cise repentance without a historical belief in a Su- 
preme Being. Therefore, the Bible contains no prom- 
ise of hope for an impenitent, rebellious, self-centered 
person, but on the contrary every page reflects the 
lurid lightnings of vengeance, heralding the coming 
storm of judgment, in terrible fury and unstayed 
destruction of disbelievers. Let us notice now the 
first element in faith. Knowledge of the truth in a 
limited sense at least, is necessary to faith. It is an 
indisputable fact, that every unsaved person, who 
has been permitted to enjoy the advantages of evan- 
gelical instructions, given from the pulpit, or who 
has personally studied the word of God, in a careless 
or indifferent way, as to that matter, has sufficient 
knowledge of Christian duty, and divine obligations 
to bring his soul under the awful guilt of sinning 
against light, but it is also true that all persons are 
intellectually qualified to believe. 

Reader, if you were summoned to appear in the 
presence of God this moment, could you sincerely and 
truthfully say that you had not been given the 
chance to be saved, or admitting that you had, but 
that you did not have the power to believe it? The 
second element in faith is inseparably joined to the 
first one, that we have just been discussing. It is 

[71] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

next to impossible for a person to be instructed in 
the affairs of God's kingdom and to possess a limited 
knowledge of Bible truth, without giving his assent 
to the veracity and credibility of the truths reported. 
But those two elements are metaphysical, incorporat- 
ing a measure of moral force and power, giving one 
a clear understanding of the weighty and responsible 
matter of moral judgment, that can only come thru 
the conviction of the law. Paul says, "by the law is 
the knowledge of sin." Again he says, that "the 
Gentiles were a law unto themselves," showing that 
the moral law, or Mosaic decalogue, was written on 
their consciences, a fact which is demonstrated in the 
experiences of all men of every race and tongue and in 
all the ages of the world, being revealed (1) in the uni- 
versal belief of all people or peoples in the Supreme 
Being and (2) in the power and mental ability of men, 
in every state of existence, civilized or heathen, to form 
a correct moral judgment touching matters relating to 
the rights of each other, and the natural yearning of 
their hearts, untutored tho they may be to understand 
and gain intelligent access to God, and acquire a per- 
sonal knowledge of Him, whom they in their ignorance 
and corrupt or benighted state, vainly worship. Spir- 
itual conviction of sin finds its basis in the above men- 
tioned conditions of human nature. Though fallen, 
man is a moral creature. And the first awakening 
that the soul receives, giving it the power of repent- 
ance, and the moral courage and spiritual strength 

[72] 



FAITH IN CHRIST 

to turn to God, comes thru the conviction of the 
holy spirit, superhumanly and dynamically per- 
formed. His conviction is absolutely effective in the 
above sense, of bringing about a moral reform in the 
penitent, and his complete spiritual transformation. 
And tho the holy spirit is not the sheriff of the law, 
and does not make any effort to arrest the sinner in 
his rebellious career, and reform him on the basis of 
legal enactments, that has already resulted in his 
certain condemnation and ultimate judgment, unless 
he is extricated from the toils of the law, neverthe- 
less the holy spirit takes the advantage of the pre- 
vious knowledge of the sinner of his condemned 
state, and uses it, incidentally, in making his own 
personal conviction, based upon the grace of God, 
that has its truest manifestation in the death of 
Jesus, which fact being the source of atonement, is 
reported in the gospel and brings all classes of sin- 
ners under the law, directly responsible for the trag- 
edy of Calvary, and convicts them for the heinous 
crime of deicide, in the absence of ■ ' their repentance ' ' 
toward God and faith in Jesus. Therefore the holy 
spirit, being the agent of salvation, convicts men, 
because they do not believe in Jesus. The basis 
then of His work of conviction is the grace of God 
that is revealed in the atonement of Christ, thru 
which it secures effectively the salvation of those 
who believe. Hence Paul thus testifies: "I am not 
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power 

[73] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

of God unto salvation." The gospel then brings 
faith — the faith — once for all delivered entirely 
out of the realm of law unto which it was shut up in 
past ages, being kept for the manifestation of Jesus, 
and out of the sphere of the symbolism of Judaism, 
into its own sphere, viz: The spiritual environment 
of gospel, and true Christian ideals established and 
preserved by the personal supervision of the holy 
spirit — the vicegerent of Jesus. Hence the third 
element of faith, trust or affiance, or recumbency, 
as the old writers called it, is essential to a finished 
and well rounded faith. The New Testament scrip- 
ture emphasizes the fact, that faith is a composite, 
trinitarian grace. It cannot therefore, be brought to 
its full fruitage, so long as the element of loving 
trust is absent. It is almost universally true that all 
classes of sinners, the thoughtlessly careless, willfully 
indifferent and even hopeless reprobates, possess the 
first two elements of faith, which is proven by the 
fact that they are conscious of guilt — accept the 
death of Christ for sinners as a historical fact : — 
believing in a judgment to come, and furthermore, ac- 
knowledge that Jesus has power to save, and that He 
does save, and according to their opnion, He is the 
Savior of all men, "specially of them that believe." 
But to them He is not their Savior, but simply some- 
body's Savior — or simply a Savior. To illustrate 
the point, and to make it clear, it should be remem- 
bered that it is not the gold in the mine, nor the bul- 

[74] 



FAITH IN CHRIST 

lion in the mint, that liquidates the indebtedness of 
the national government, but the minted coin of the 
realm, that is reserved in government depositories. 
And it is not the money of another man that pays 
our debts, but that which we have in our pockets or 
the bank. Jesus saves us in the same way, from the 
indebtedness to God, His Father under law, or in 
the possessive case, becoming our real personal Sav- 
ior, from sin and eternal misery in the world to 
come. We cannot be saved by proxy, nor upon the 
merits of our parents, nor our spiritual advisor's, 
nor our Christian friend's faith. Jesus is a jealous 
God, and must have the supreme love, and first place 
in our hearts, or He will not save us, and faith as a 
living personal trust is the only thing that we can 
do that will enable us to give it to Him. 

The Conquering Grace 

' ' This is the victory that overcometh the world ; 
even our faith." This is just as true of natural 
faith, as it is of spiritual, or saving faith. Natural 
faith is the basic principle of human association and 
society. The old adage, "birds of a feather flock 
together" contains an ancient philosophy of human 
life, that has had its demonstration in every age, and 
in all the affairs of men, especially all those concerned 
in organized efforts for the accomplishment of part- 
icular aims. It will be a sad day in the history of 

[75] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

the world, when men so far lose confidence in one 
another, as to withold responsible and valuable 
pledges of trust, and refuse to have intimate political, 
social, religious and commercial intercourse with 
each other. Natural faith has produced all the great 
combinations of wealth, corporations involving a 
multiplicity of commercial interests, and all combina- 
tions, representing the consolidation of the mutual 
affairs of all men composing the circumscribed group. 
It is the foundation of every great city, and town, 
and village, and nation, kingdom and empire, thruout 
the world. It is the genius of national peace, the spirit 
of progress that directs in the development of the 
arts and sciences, and that secures the prosperity 
and happiness of civilized men. And were it to be 
destroyed the world would be plunged into a state of 
social and political pandemonium; anarchy, the pol- 
itical madness of Utopian dreamers, would supplant 
organized governments and a reign of inhuman car- 
nage, social injustice, and atheistic ideals, would re- 
sult. Destroy natural faith, and you can bankrupt 
every business, every banking house, railroad corp- 
oration, and commercial trust, of every kind. It is 
the foundation of every great enterprise that exists 
today, and that's proving beneficial to all men. 
Eliminate it from the affairs of men, and you will 
illumine the torch of incendiarism, put a dagger, 
dripping with innocent blood, in the hand of a cow- 
ardly assassin, and put a bomb of picric acid under 

[76] 



FAITH IN CHRIST 

the foundation of all civic life, and a reign of terror, 
similar to that of the French Revolution would re- 
sult, and peace, integrity, virtue, honor and personal 
security, would perish, and a bedlam of iniquity 
would inaugurate hell on earth. And it is not strain- 
ing the truth, to assert that natural faith contributes 
a large share to the development of the church, 
whose chief security consists in the exercise of a 
finished faith that embraces the third principle, or 
that of loving trust. Faith as a spiritual virtue is 
almost omnipotent. It brings power and strength to 
the tempted soul, enabling us to prevail against the 
seductive influence and machinations of Satan. It 
is related of the Puritans, during the days of Crom- 
well, that they went forth to battle against the Royal- 
ists, believing that they were divinely directed by 
the Lord, and that they were fighting for His glory, 
and could not be defeated. It is remarkable that in 
the course of the civil war, men from the forges, the 
plow and the marts of trade, met trained Cavaliers 
on their own ground, and defeated them. The Roy- 
alists were mighty men of military valor, but they 
could not stand before the zealous assaults of the 
Puritan army, which was inspired by a religious 
faith. The motto of the two armies presents an inter- 
esting contrast; that of the Royalists were these 
words: "King and Queen Mary!" "Hey! for Caval- 
iers ! ' ' and that of the Puritans : ' ' Truth and peace ! ' ' 
"God is with us!" They advanced to the conflict and 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

mingled with the roar of musketry and the clash of 
steel the sound of psalms and spiritual songs. Faith 
is the genius of Christianity — the source and imper^ 
ishable foundation of civilization. It has enriched 
the history of humanity. Every great achievement 
and heroic example of piety, self-denial and martyr- 
dom, recorded in sacred writ, reflects its virtue and 
holy power. It inspires the hearts of men with 
courage in the face of danger. It is the secret of 
David's matchless deeds of bravery and patriotism. 
It crowned Gideon with success, and was the girding 
of power to Moses and Joshua and Sampson, who put 
to "flight the armies of aliens." "And what shall 
I more say?" Shall I further speak of that long list 
of godly worthies who wrought, thru the faith of 
Jesus, miraculous works, establishing Christian 
ideals, before whose triumphant march thrones were 
overturned, and wicked dynasties brought to desola- 
tion, building upon their ruins, enduring temples of 
righteousness ? ' ' Faith is a certain image of eternity. 
All things are present to it — things past, and things 
to come. 

"But even if human eyes see not, 

No one is unobserved — 
There are censures deep and plaudits high 

As each may be deserved; 
We cannot live in a secret place; 

There are watchers always by, 
For heaven and earth are full of life, 

And God is ever nigh." 

[78] 



CHAPTER V 

Our Home 

"Lamping thy tuneful soul to that large noon 

Where thou shalt choir with angels. Words of woe 

Are for the unfulfilled, not thee, whose moon 
Of genius sinks full-orbed, glorious aglow." 

"No moaning of the bar; musical drifting 

Of time's waves, turning to the eternal sea, 

Deaths soft wind all thy gallant canvass lifting, 
And Christ thy pilot to the peace to be." 

"In my Father's house are many mansions." 
Jno. 14 :2. The scene is laid in a small home in Waco, 
Texas. An only daughter is lingering on the border 
of the great divide. She was rapidly approaching 
the coronation period of her short career. She went 
home the eighteenth day of April, 1913. This was 
the darkest day in the history of myself and of my 
lonely, heart-broken wife. But it has its bright side 
— as every cloud has its silver lining. The moments 
and minutes and hours that composed it are swal- 
lowed up in an endless eternity. The mistakes, lost 
opportunities, misfortunes and soul-harrowing cal- 
amities that transpired during its passage are mat- 
ters of record with the Judge of all the earth. 
Though clouds and shadows came with it, yet it was 
beautiful in the extreme in comparison with the days 

[79] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

of sorrow and misery that passed thru the exper- 
iences of those who are unacquainted with God, and 
whose loved ones are not prepared to go into His 
presence, but who, in spite of neglected opportuni- 
ties to repent and make their peace with God, in 
obedience to His word have had to go away unpre- 
pared. Dawning fair and bright, it rose upon our 
storm-tossed world, and like a heavenly messenger 
dispatched from the throne of God, opened wide the 
gates of life, pouring in upon our shadow-haunted 
earth billows of radiant light that, rolling over 
oceans and seas, snow-capped mountains, moss-cover- 
ed hills, and clover-laden valleys, kissing the frag- 
rant smiles back to the petals of the drooping rose, 
dissolving raindrops that lingered lovingly upon the 
cheek of the modest little pink, and bathing forest 
and glen, orchard and garden, in roseate crimson- 
tinted light, dispelling the clouds, chasing away the 
shadows, awakening all nature, and making the 
world glad with the music of multitudinous, feath- 
ered songsters. And in the time of our deepest sor- 
row, how forcibly were we reminded of the heavenly 
Canaan, whither our darling daughter had gone - — 
where sunlight skies are ever cloudless, sin never 
comes, nor misery with its deplorable tale of woe, 
nor poverty with its haggard face and mendicant 
garb, ever enters. There, all are pure, all are hap- 
py, all are rich. As I looked into her pale, dead 
face, I was reminded of a dark, dismal night in the 

[80] 



OUR HOME 

past when her sick papa was entertained and cheer- 
ed, as she performed in her childish way npon the 
organ and sang: 

' ' Jesus lover of my soul, 

Let me to thy boson fly; 
While the nearer water's roll, 

While the tempest still is high. ' ' 

Then I cannot help exclaiming, "Jesus paid it 
all ; all to Him I owe. ' ' Yea, time, talents, love, ser- 
vice, body, soul, eternal salvation, everlasting glory. 
He paid the ransom price for our souls, and gave us 
a glorious heritage on high, and He is, therefore, en- 
titled to our service here, and our personal presence 
over there. Here we have no permanent abiding 
place, but by His grace we have the promise of one 
"that hath foundations" "eternal in the heavens," 
' ' whose building and maker is God. " " I go to prepare 
a place for you." Heaven is a prepared place. We 
may hold widely divergent views regarding the 
present abode of disembodied spirits, yet all must 
admit that heaven is a prepared place, or rather that 
in heaven, Christ has provided a place of abode, spe- 
cially for his people. "In my Father's house are many 
mansions." I understand the Savior to mean, by the 
phrase "many abodes," separate dwelling places for 
different orders of beings. Angels are evidently not 
all of the same order. Some have more glory, some 
more power than others. There are lower and higher 
orders among them, but all of them are highly hon- 

[81] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

ored by being created servants of the blessed Trinity. 
Hence there are provided abodes in God's house 
(oikiai) befitting the character of service that they 
render and consonant to the honor that he conferred 
upon them, in their separate ranks. Hence, with 
this view of the subject, we are better prepared to 
understand the language, "many abodes," and "I go 
to prepare a place for you. ' ' But some one may ask, 
"Was there not a place prepared for God's people 
prior to the death, resurrection and ascension of 
Christ, and whither they have been gathered since 
the world began?" Certainly! Enoch and Elijah, 
who were translated that they should not see death, 
and Moses, who I believe was raised from the dead, 
because the scriptures speak about war having oc- 
cured between the heavenly host, under the leader- 
ship of Michael, and the demons of the pit led by 
Satan, over his body, and all those who were raised 
when Jesus died and went into the city of Jerusal- 
em, have more liberty, perhaps, than either angels 
or disembodied spirits in Paradise, and are allowed 
to roam at will, thru the vast domain of the unseen 
realms above. "They are as the angels" and have 
been "accounted worthy to obtain that world and 
the resurrection from the dead," but as to the place 
of their present abode, unless it is Paradise, the 
scriptures are silent on the subject; however, tho 
meager, scripture accounts of them are sufficiently 
explicit to warrant us in saying that their residence 

[82] 



OUR HOME 

is in the heaven above. Here I let the curtain fall. 
Moses and Elijah appeared in the mount of transfig- 
uration with Jesus; since then, the Bible concerning 
them is a sealed book. Paradise is the intermediate 
state of the righteous dead, the place whither the 
"justified spirits of men made perfect" thru "blood 
of sprinkling," have come, from Abel down to the 
present. Christ, in company with the penitent thief, 
went there and remained during the interval between 
His death and resurrection. Lazarus and all the 
saved, who have put off "this mortal coil" are there 
patiently awaiting the return of our Lord to this 
earth, which event will witness the coming of those 
"justified spirits made perfect," with Jesus and the 
angels, to receive their bodies and to be glorified. 

Then we will enter those blest abodes, that 
Christ has prepared for his redeemed and resurrected 
people. "When I come again I will receive you un- 
to myself." Here I leave this part of the subject. 

Readers, study your Bible and draw your own 
conclusion. Heaven is a place of light. Heaven as a 
state begins in the soul, and the very first experi- 
mental knowledge that we receive of heaven comes 
immediately after the forgiveness of our sins. How 
can a man be happy until God has pardoned his sins ! 
A soul in darkness, lost in sin, could not appreciate 
it, if it knew that a place was actually reserved in 
heaven for it. God operates first upon the heart, 

[83] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

changing our nature, spiritualizing the soul, so as to 
render it capable, in some small sense, to appreciate 
the inheritance of light and then He reserves the in- 
heritance for us. Heaven is day without night. The 
light that emanates from the "Father of lights" and 
that guides our weary footsteps in the way of holi- 
ness, will grow brighter and brighter unto the com- 
ing of the perfect day. Heaven is a place of perfect 
rest. Not that idleness prevails ; on the contrary, we 
shall be more active than now. The citizens of that 
"better country" ceaselessly serve God, but never 
tire, never grow weary, never exhaust their energies. 
Employment is essential to the soul's contentment. 
Moses is not "a wandering Jew," nor Joshua a re- 
tired hero, David a harpless Quaker, Isaiah an idle 
dreamer, nor Paul a visionless preacher. Neither is 
Peter a dreaming visionary, a spiritual prophet, nor 
John a sighing sentimentalist. Has Peter lost his 
intrepidity, Robert Hall his industry, Spurgeon, Tal- 
mage, Beecher, the knowledge and use of their inspir- 
ing and instructive eloquence? Nay, who can tell 
but that the capacity of all the saved to receive and 
communicate happiness, and also the opportunity 
to work out many of the problems of life, that were 
sealed mysteries to them here, and also to investigate 
many of the hidden truths of the scriptures that 
were beyond their reach in this life, is greatly in- 
creased and made more efficient in the great beyond. 

[84] 



OUR HOME 

' ' holy dwelling place of God ! 
glorious city all divine! 
Thy streets, by feet of Seraphs trod, 

Shall one glad day be trod by mine, ? ' 

Then, when heaven's gate is entered, the shad- 
ows will all flee away. No night there. Security 
without temptation. Safety without danger. The 
gates that swing out to let Christ come to this sin- 
cursed earth will swing back to let us in, and they 
will never be shut. No need to close them. The host of 
darkness will have been vanquished, and driven down 
to the regions of eternal despair, where they will be 
shut in with their sins forever. There will be no 
strikes in heaven, because all will be Kings and 
Priests unto God, hence on an equality with each 
other. There will be no poverty there, for all will be 
rich. Nor will there be any servant girls, with fin- 
gers worked to the bone, in order to make a bare 
living, sewing garments for the rich, nor honest 
employees of any trade or profession, hounded down 
into beggary and want by some petty tyrant, the 
creature of an unjust commercial system, because all 
will be "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ." 
Oh, earth, what awful ruin sin hath wrought among 
thine inhabitants ! Thy soil is drenched in the blood 
of honest hearts, crushed under the iron heel of ty- 
ranny, and inhuman oppression ! In this connection, 
how significant are the sad lines of Robert Burns: 

[85] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

"Many and sharp the numerous ills 

Inwoven with our frame, 
More pointed still we make ourselves 

Regret, remorse and shame! 
And man, whose heaven-erected face, 

The smiles of love adorn, 
Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless millions mourn." 

The above lines are so applicable to our time, 
that they appear almost to have been inspired. "Wars, 
tumults, riots, calamities, pestilences, famines, lost 
character, ruined lives, withered hopes, wrecked 
homes, broken hearts, and death ! death ! death ! 
Thank God, none of this in heaven! No broken 
family ties there. No mother's tears shed for the 
wandering boy or girl, lured from the parental roof 
into sin's treacherous path, ne'ermore to return. 
Good-byes will never be said, benedictions pro- 
nounced, nor doxologies sung, as there will be no 
wanderings from heaven, and congregations will 
ne'er break up. Here in this vale of shadows we 
sing: 

"Hark! from the tomb a doleful sound! 
Mine ears attend the cry; 
Yea living men, come view the ground 
Where you must shortly lie." 

But in view of His Second Coming, and our eter- 
nal emancipation from sin, and ultimate glorification 
in His kingdom, our hearts are filled with "joy that 
is unspeakable," and we shout: 

[86] 



OUR HOME 

" Bright glories rush upon my sight, 
And charm my wondering eyes — 
The regions of immortal life, 
The beauties of the skies. 

All hail, ye fair, celestial shores 

Ye lands of endless day; 
A right delight your prospect pours, 

And drives my griefs away." 

All the foregone considerations are delightful, 
and exceedingly refreshing to the weary spirit of all 
earth wanderers. Here, in this land of shadows 
and disappointing enterprises and profitless pursuits, 
we grow weary and become restless, many times even 
wishing that we could reach the last milestone in the 
journey and from the crossroads of life wave a long 
adieu to our earth companions and then cross over 
the river of death, and "rest under the shade of the 
trees." The heaven-kissed soul of Beecher expresses 
the upward longing of every Christain spirit, in the 
following beautiful words: 

' ' One should go to sleep at night as homesick passengers do, 
Saying, " Perhaps in the morning we shall see the shore. " 

I do not care for a carnal heaven of a Mahomet. 
Such an institution, visible or invisible, could not 
partake of the purity and spiritual genius of Chris- 
tianity, and could not therefore, be a place of delight 
and enjoyment to a Christian, because the entire 
environment would be out of harmony with our re- 
generated natures. All homes are builded upon a 

[87] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

principle of domestic purity, having the divine sanc- 
tion of Jehovah, hence the foundation of civic, social 
and religious life, as it involves the association of 
those of our kind, is similar in its basic structure. 
All homes are not composed of the same personali- 
ties, but have the same true foundation, therefore the 
home is a type of our heavenly home. God's child- 
ren here, are strangers and pilgrims in the earth. We 
are away from home, and it is but natural for the 
heart of the wandering son or daughter to meditate 
upon the beauty, the promised glory and joy of hea- 
ven. Heaven then is a place of unity, and its inhab- 
itants will be as one great family. There will be 
distinct and separate personalities in heaven, the 
identity of every person and angel will be preserved ; 
hence the much desired feature of individualism as 
it is sought in social and religious developments here, 
will be brought to its complete and finished develop- 
ment in heaven. One of the most beautiful phases of 
life in heaven will be the demonstration of finished 
character and perfect work. Swedenborg's dream 
of heaven was chimerical and unreal. It was a place 
of division — a place of degrees, or in other words it 
was a place composed of different sections, members 
of which could never reach sections above them, or 
enter into their associations and fellowship, because 
they were lower down in the glorious realms of 
eternity. It is true that heaven is not one broad table 
land. The spiritual oneness of the inhabitants of 

[88] 



OUR HOME 

heaven, will be individual rather than collective. 
There will be distinctions between persons there, just 
the same as there are here, but each one in heaven 
will have previously experienced the unification of the 
physical and spiritual natures that is to be brought 
about thru the immortalized human body in the pro- 
cess of instantaneous resurrection. There will be a 
difference in the rewards possessed by those who were 
faithful in the discharge of Christian duty in this life. 
And there will be some who will not have the reward 
that is bestowed upon those who are patiently and 
perseveringly engaged in good works, trying to do 
the Master's will daily, because the character of work 
that they perform was not according to His revealed 
word. Thus Paul says: "But if any man buildeth 
on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, 
hay, stubble ; each man's work shall be made manifest : 
for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in 
fire; and a fire itself shall prove each man's work of 
what sort it is. If any man's work shall abide which 
he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any 
man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but 
he himself shall be saved; yet so as thru fire." I Cor. 
3 : 12-15. Now the question arises in every thoughtful 
mind, did the Apostle mean to teach that there would 
be degrees in heaven? He did not; he taught the 
very reverse, for it is perfectly clear that he accepted 
the view, that all persons who enter heaven do st» 
thru the unmerited grace of God. Kegeneration — or 

[89] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

the spiritualizing of human nature, is all the prepara- 
tion that one needs to become an heir of God and 
reach heaven, because salvation is not achieved thru 
a performance of a system of good works. Jesus said 
that heaven was a receptacle for good works, and He 
called it the Christians' treasury, and encouraged his 
disciples to lay up treasures in it, rather than on the 
earth, where moths corrupted and thieves broke thru 
the barriers of protection, and stole our treasury. 
Therefore, a person who is making all manner of 
sacrifices and indulging all kinds of self denial, bur- 
dening himself with ritualistic service without ex- 
periencing the grace of God in personal salvation 
from sin, in order to win heaven, is laying up his 
treasures on earth, and not in heaven; hence the 
thief of eternity — Satan — who has stolen away the 
original perfection of the human race, will despoil 
us of our treasure here, unless the work that we are 
doing is identified with the nature of God, and par- 
takes of the spirituality of grace. Good works must 
have a spiritual nature, in that they are the legitimate 
fruitage of the grace of God, that is shed abroad by 
the Holy Ghost in our hearts. Every man 's work must 
necessarily partake of his nature, because the heart is 
the source or mainspring of life, and out of it are the 
issues of the present destiny, and also the invisible one 
in the great beyond. If the heart is pure, the deeds 
of the life will be pure and acceptable to God ; but if 
the heart is impure, the corroding moth of carnality 

[90] 



OUR HOME 

will leave the blight of sin and human depravity upon 
all of our works, even the best that we perform. 
God doesn't accept the worship nor the service of 
criminals, and so long as a man is related to God as 
his Creator, but living under the law of Moses, he 
cannot please God for the reason that the law is 
spiritual, but the natural creature is carnal, sold under 
sin. Then coming back to the Apostle's statement to 
the Corinthians, he evidently meant to teach that in 
heaven, tho there will be a difference in personal 
rewards for work done in this world, and also a dif- 
ference in the manifestation of glory, as it is expressed 
in the individual form, yet all would be happy, not 
in the same measure of rapture or joy, but according 
to the spiritual capacity of each person to enjoy a 
plethora of happiness and eternal glory. He further 
illustrates the point under consideration in his dis- 
cussion of the resurrection. He says there, that as one 
star ' ' differeth from another star, ' ' so it would be true 
of those in the resurrection of their bodies. Some 
stars are brighter than other stars, but all of them 
have light, and tho all persons in the resurrection to 
the blessed immortality of the gospel will not have 
the same glorious form, yet all resurrected persons will 
have glory-filled bodies. Consequently their physical 
natures will be blended with their soul-natures, and 
will be glorious, majestic and God-like. Evidently, 
some persons will have more glory and a larger capac- 
ity for the enjoyment of heaven than others, but those 

[91] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

possessing a more limited nature for the enjoyment 
of the glory and the fellowship and communion and 
love of such great characters as will occupy heaven as 
Abraham, Moses and the Prophets and Apostles and 
great preachers as Spurgeon, Talmadge, Luther, John 
Knox and the martyrs, who entered the gates of glory 
stained with their own blood, that was given as a faith- 
ful testimony to the power of Jesus to save and to 
furnish the church an imperishable seed that gathered 
strength and fertility for the production of a glorious 
harvest from the ash heaps of Zion, that was flung 
by the ruthless hand of persecution over the horizon 
of a world's civilization, — all those will not be con- 
scious of the fact that any other person is enjoying 
more of heaven than they, nor will they be able to see 
any difference in the lustrous beauty of their own 
forms and that of others. For all will be glorious, 
bright, having a star-like beauty fashioned after the 
glorified person of Jesus, and possessing immortality 
in the same unchangeable degree and quality of life 
that was secured thru His obedience to His Father, in 
the resurrection of His perfected physical nature from 
the grave. We will enter into the same fullness of life 
from the dead as He possesses it, because He is our 
leader and furnishes the complete pattern of all the 
redeemed. Our earthly home is the dearest spot on 
earth, the scene of our purest enjoyments and next in 
interest and sincere appreciation, and that which is 
always remembered with delight, is the land of our 

[92] 



OUR HOME 

nativity. And it is true, that the majority of men in 
this world are wanderers from their paternal home and 
the land of their birth. And it is natural for the heart 
of a sojourner in a strange country to feel a kindly 
interest in the old home, and to keep in mind the kin- 
dred and friends of other days. And it is true that our 
Father in heaven has placed in our hearts an imperish- 
able and innate desire that no earthly home can satisfy. 
The heart of God's child longs to be at home, and 
craves the satisfying delights of heaven. ' ' Home with 
God, with loved ones, among kindred spirits loving 
and beloved, and in the midst of all things lovely — 
what more could be desired ? ' ' 

"0, land of love! 0, land of light divine! 
Father, All wise, Eternal! 
Guide me, guide these wandering feet of mine 
Into those gates Supernal!' ' 



[93] 



CHAPTER VI 

Pre-Eminence of Christ 

"Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever; And 
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of thy king- 
dom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated ini- 
quity. Therefore, God, thy God hath anointed thee 
with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." Heb. 
I: 8, 9. 

The Superior Nature 

of Christ can be proven from many scriptural facts, 
but to undertake to translate the meaning of divinity 
through the veil of His perfected humanity, would re- 
sult in disastrous defeat, strangling faith, blighting 
hope, and bringing a total eclipse of reason ; however, 
it is only through the harmoniously blended and eter- 
nally active, co-equal and co-extensive human and di- 
vine elements in the nature of Jesus, that we are per- 
mitted to retain His personal presence, experiment- 
ally, in our hearts. History corroborates the scrip- 
tures upon the fact that the divinity of Jesus is the 
substantial basis of Christianity, but a special revela- 
tion — such as only the scriptures furnish — was neces- 
sary in explaining and proving the connection be- 
tween His divine and human nature. Thus the two- 
fold nature of Jesus is expressed in the language of 

[94] 



PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST 

John: "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt 
among us." But the distinction that exists between 
the human and the divine nature of Jesus, is care- 
fully preserved in the Bible statement, the latter be- 
ing expressed in the phrase, "Son of God," and the 
former as its correlative in that of "Son of man." 
Therefore Jesus is not a deified human nor a human- 
ized God. It was not enough for us to have an ex- 
ample, or a teacher or a sympathizing friend. We 
need forgiveness of sins, no matter how objectionable 
to us or repulsive to our self-esteem — we must be re- 
deemed — saved, personally, from the contamination of 
sin or we are lost forever. 

And the unequivocal testimony of God's word, 
from cover to cover, emphasizes the fact that our re- 
demption is in Christ. Paul in the first chapter of his 
letter to the Colossians most wonderfully expresses 
love and loyalty to Christ. And a more positive state- 
ment of his divineness could not be framed. He is 
presented as the only one, through whom we have 
redemption, and who has made atonement for our 
souls, thru the shedding of His blood. By His stripes 
we are healed. 

In order to be able to atone for us, He must be 
higher and more than man. If He were only a human 
being, His death would not avail for His own salva- 
tion, to say nothing of others. But He was and is 
very God of very God. And the Father so recognizes 
His divine sonship, His uneclipsed Godhead and the 

[95] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

eternal duration of His regal authority and dominions. 
' ' Thy throne God is forever and ever. ' ' Thou hast 
loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore 
God, thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of glad- 
ness above thy fellows." 

"In native worth and honor clad, 
With beauty, courage, strength adorned, 
Erect, with front serene, 
He stands a man, the Lord and King of 
nature all." 

Christ's human nature in which he suffered, bled and 
died was unfallen. There was not the slightest taint 
of imperfection or pollution in it ; hence, having given 
himself a perfect, spotless sacrifice for men, God has 
rewarded him for the service by promoting him to the 
highest place of enthronement in heaven, as the only 
Mediator between God and man, and having bestowed 
the anointing of glory and gladness upon him above 
all creatures in earth or heaven. 

Christ was the creator. He made all things that 
exist in heaven or on earth — visible and invisible, 
angels and men: — all were created by Him, and for 
Him, and He is above and before them all. This is not 
merely an exuberant or excited statement, mentioned 
only in one place. The same is said in the first chapter 
of John. Christ or the second Person in the Trinity, 
is the manifestation or revealer. He is the Word by 
means of which expression is given to those things 
which could not have been expressed thru any other 

[96] 



PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST 

method. He is the express image of God and in Him 
we see and know God. 

The Father spoke through Jesus, because He was 
the brightness of His glory — the Word of His power ; 
He transferred to Him the administration of provi- 
dence — giving him a "name that h above every 
name. ' ' And ' ' when He made purification of sins sat 
down on the right hand of the majesty on high ; hav- 
ing become by so much better than the angels, as he 
hath inherited a more excellent name than they. ' ' 

The Superior Name 

of Jesus proves the superiority of His nature. He is 
above angels. It was said of Christ: "Thou art my 
Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and 
I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance. And 
the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possessions. ' ' 
The above language evidently refers to the ascension 
of Jesus to the right hand of the majesty on high, 
from whence he is now ruling among the nations of 
the earth, and receiving many tithes of blood-washed 
spirits from among the Heathen as his possession. He 
was never more imminently manifest in any age of the 
world, since His death on Calvary, than He is today. 
Is history barren of evidence of incarnation ? 

Has Christ failed to make Himself felt as a potent 
factor in shaping world affairs, and presiding over 
the destiny of struggling nations, and waning em- 
pires? Is not the name of Jesus the crowning glory 

[97] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

of civilization, and does it not shine with an ever- 
increasing luster athwart the darkened horizon of 
nations? "Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, 
God of Israel the Savior." God says concerning 
Christ, but never about the angels : " I will be to him 
a Father and He shall be to me a Son." He is not 
only the Son of God by nature, but also the super- 
natural operation of the Holy Spirit, who produced 
His human nature through wonderful conception. All 
intelligent creatures are required to worship him. The 
adoration of wise men and angels over his infant 
form in the lowly manger of Bethlehem is worthy of 
emulation by all mankind below, and angels above. 

God has crowned His Son with glory and honor 
and endoweth Him with supreme authority in heaven 
and on earth, hence He positively commands all of His 
angels to worship Him. Yes, the Father has enthroned 
Jesus above all dominion and power, and He shall 
reign until an utter end is made of anti- Christ ianism — 
the unseen force that has plunged the world into a 
bloody war. The Pan-Europeon War demonstrates 
the utter futility of national plans for the preservation 
of universal peace. The sentimentalist shouts: 
"Peace, peace, when there is no peace." But Jesus 
says: As it was in the day of Sodom and Gomorrah 
and before the flood, so will it be, when I return to 
receive my kingdom. There will also be wars and 
rumors of wars to the end of the Gentile Dispensation. 
And the only visible law, recognized by the European 

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PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST 

nations that are engaged in conflict, is that of mili- 
tarism. But it is also true that the only power of 
righteousness existing among them at present, is 
wielded personally by Jesus, the God and maker of 
history who ' ' hides himself. ' ' And although this war 
appears to be unreasonable and wholly unjustifiable — 
it is shockingly inhuman and its horrible destruction 
indescribable — nevertheless it seems to have been in- 
evitable, and could not be avoided. Anyway, history 
demonstrates that world-progress has never achieved 
permanency, that did not receive its initiative and 
potentiality by the clash of nations. Bible prophecy 
is being fulfilled and history is repeating itself. Out- 
worn philosophies and ecclesiastical vagaries are being 
discarded and thoughtful people are "inquiring after 
the old paths" and are earnestly breaking away the 
age-long encrustations of superstitious thought from 
the divine way-marks of truth. 

This war is Har-Mageddon ; at least, it has many 
indications that point to it, as the last great cataclysm 
of nations. At any rate, I cannot accept the present 
version of the modernist, viz. : that it is a " return to 
barbarism. ' ' The world is struggling in the throes of a 
new birth-travail and a higher, nobler, purer and more 
humanitarian civilization will be the legitimate issue. 
The future will witness the uprising of a noble spirit 
of superaltruism from the ruins of empires and the 
wreck of nations that will bring about the unity of 
world powers and inspire mankind with sentiments of 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

nobility, eliminating social retrogression, religious re- 
actionism and political animalism, the trinity of evils 
that has been the curse of civilization from its intro- 
duction to the present time. But thru all the carnage 
of war, the ingratitude and iniquity of nations, reeking 
social corruptions and inexcusable political defilements 
of the past, Jesus has maintained the integrity of His 
throne, and today His scepter of power is lifted upon 
the horizon of conflicting kingdoms, the blood of 
whose subjects make red the fair fields of Europe. 
"The scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy 
kingdom, ' ' Jesus — God of Host. In this connection 
we will discuss 

The Philosophic Aspects of the War 

Many writers are of the opinion that in the present 
war, civilization is undergoing a change and is about 
to collapse. But considered in the light of the social, 
intellectual, and religious development of the nations 
involved, such a calamity appears to be impossible. 
God still rules among the children of men, and in His 
mysterious way He is directing the affairs of the in- 
dividual, and is working out the accomplishment of 
His will for the establishment of a more glorious des- 
tiny for the warring nations and the entire world. I 
frankly admit that selfishness is a largely dominating 
element in the war, and it unquestionably contributed 
to the opening of hostilities, and is the ruling genius 
(?) of all those who are in control of the affairs of 

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PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST 

the different nations. Human nature is super-abun- 
dantly in the ascendancy and it is a regretable fact 
that its worst side and its most corrupt and destruct- 
ible feature is in control, at the present time, in every 
avenue of life and in all departments of national life. 
Men are seeking the gratification of the lower passions 
and animalism is largely suppressing the noble prin- 
ciples of truth, culture, the arts, higher sciences and 
spiritual development. The carnal in man is exult- 
ingly mastering the European situation. But the 
aforegone conclusions do not prove that civilization 
is lost to the world, nor that God is not directing the 
affairs of those persons who are conducting the Great 
War. The searching trial of this present war, or of 
any of the wars of the past, came upon mankind not 
without the sovereign permission of God. 

War is the purgation of nations, and all of the 
wars of the past have been disciplinary and worked 
out lasting good to the world. And evidently the evil 
tendencies and results of this war will be over-ruled 
by the Lord Jesus for the good of the whole world 
This view of the subject is more reasonable and en- 
couraging to Christians and should be accepted by all 
classes of men. Suppose that it has arisen without 
God's permission, and that His influence is entirely 
eliminated, then would it not be true, that the beliger- 
ents would not be conscious of any divine restraints 
and God would be inaccessible to them ? That, within 
itself, would be the greatest calamity that could be- 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

fall the world. Then it would be true, that the wai 
was solely instigated by Satan, and that he was in 
control of the conflicting powers. And if that were 
true of Europe, why would it not be true of Asia 
and Africa and the Americas, the Islands of the Seas 
and all the world ? Satan would then have an access to 
the world, and a power of evil which, if true, would 
place the world under the chaotic government of two 
contending powers and would destroy the sovereign 
providence of the one Lord, and the first foundation 
of religious faith. But the living faith in the 
Christian heart denies the absurd theory of Satanic 
control. The idea is a monstrous perversion of reason, 
and is revolting to the enlightened Christian con- 
science. The scriptures teach that God has all power, 
in heaven and in earth. The sovereignty of the One 
and Only Supreme Being is a doctrine fundamental 
to the Bible, but is an accepted fact, historically, by 
all civilized nations, and in every age. It is the ac- 
credited belief of civilized men today. And it is freely 
acknowledged that God had the power to prevent the 
war by the exercise even of his ordinary providential 
direction. In the human sense, when a ruler, or an 
individual, or a nation has the power to prevent a mis- 
fortune or calamity that would work evil to other 
persons or nations and fail to do so, he must share 
some responsibility for the occurrence. But God is 
not subject to human standards, ethically, and cannot 
be held responsible like human beings or angels, be- 

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PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST 

cause He is the Maker of all worlds, and the benign 
Giver of all life. God cannot do wrong, nor be guilty 
of any act of moral culpability because He cannot lie, 
hence, He is not responsible for the war though He 
permitted it to happen, for the reason that He must 
use men-human instrumentality — for righting the 
wrongs, eliminating social antagonisms and enslav- 
ing legal enactments, that men had encouraged and 
supported for selfish purposes. In other words, the 
nations at war voluntarily took the whiplash of war 
and God is permitting them to administer their own 
deserved castigation for the purpose of enabling them 
to re-adjust their relations in equity to each other, 
and bring about necessary internal reforms and a bet- 
ter understanding in international affairs. God is 
utilizing the belligerent nations and all individuals 
and incorporated interests, national and private, for 
the highest good of the race, and all the redeemed. 
Warlike nations have been used by the Lord for the 
great ends of His redemptive government. In the 
allied armies of Egypt and Assyria - — the enemies oi 
Ahaz — Isaiah saw the razor hired of God to shave 
off the manly beard of the nation's dignity, and re- 
duce it to contempt and derision. Later He saw in 
King Sargon the rod of God's anger and a staff of 
His indignation. A century afterward Jeremiah 
called Nebuchadnezzar God's battle-ax and weapon of 
war. In reply to Habakkuk's remonstrance God 
taught him the same truth; "I am raising up the 

[103] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation!" It is 
equally true that God raised up Cyrus the Mede, to 
overthrow Babylon, and to set Israel free, at the 
close of the seventy years captivity. In other ages, 
God permitted war for the punishment of sin, and 
the preservation of His people, and the advancement 
of His kingdom. When God had no further use for 
Chaldea, His battle-ax, He destroyed it, but the Jew 
remains until this day. May not this war be an arbit- 
rary judgment, sent by the Lord for the punishment of 
personal sins and national wrongs? If there is one 
truth which is written more plainly in the Bible, in 
history, and in the moral sense of the best men, it is 
that God's purpose on earth is to produce in men 
moral and religious character. Otherwise 

"The pillar 'd firmament itself were rottenness, 
And earth's base built on stubble." 

God will stop the war when He has avenged His op- 
pressed people, and repaired the wrongs of the world. 
In a fallen world like this, God cannot create perfect 
moral characters in men by simply teaching them to 
do right, but by inspiring them to right the wrong. 
And when a nation waxes great and strong and 
wrong gets thoroly established and unjust measures 
with blighting, oppressive influence and evil are en- 
throned and patronized by the great; righteousness 
ignored, and God dishonored, then wrong is so deeply 
entrenched in civic affairs, as to become the rule, 

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PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST 

rather than the exception, and correction of it and 
helpful reform cannot come except thru suffering. It 
is just as true of nations as it is individuals, that, 
"whatsoever they sow, they must reap !" If a nation 
"sows to the flesh, it shall of the flesh reap corrup- 
tion, " and a corrupt life will naturally be forced to 
suffer for its evil deeds. 

History abounds with many striking illustrations 
of this solemn truth; for instance, call to mind the 
judgment of Ahab and the bestowment of God 's right- 
eous wrath upon his household and Israel, over whom 
he reigned ; the visitation of King David 's immortality 
and murderous intrigues upon his own head, in the 
form of an arbitrary penalty, enforced upon a much- 
loved child, that God took from its cradle and its un- 
faithful mother 's arms ; the violent death of the licent- 
ious and cruel Jezebel; the swift vengeance of God 
upon Core and Dathan; the dark ending of Eli's life 
and the death of his corrupt sons; the overthrow of 
Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah; the destruc- 
tion and complete ruin of Babylon, Nineveh, Jeru- 
salem and Egypt. But "what need I more say" 
touching this point? Who has not considered the 
doom of a brutal and inhuman Caligula • — the death 
of a tyrannical Caesar, and the furious wrath of God 
as it was meted without measure or mercy, to an 
eloquent, tho bestial and incestuous Herod? Or who 
has not been over-awed by the stupendous and un- 
limited power and inescapable wrath of God, that was 

[105] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

so unmistakably demonstrated in the destruction of a 
world during the awful ruin of Noah's flood? But 
why discuss this point further when it is so clearly 
established by all history — religious and profane — 
that the history of our world — in every age and 
every great epochal period, resulting in internal 
changes or denationalization for the different nations 
and kingdoms of the past, exhibits many evidences of 
God's divine dealings with them because of their 
wickedness, that came in guise of merciful reproof and 
warning, providential antagonisms and corrective 
judgments. Ballou says, "the same Hand that sent 
the storm, holds the helm. ' ' 

" God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold: 

We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart; 

Time will reveal the calyxes of gold. ' ' 

Providence is mysterious and its decrees inscrut- 
able, but divine interposition, tho always miraculous, 
is not to be uniformly identified as a distinct miracle, 
sovereignly and independently wrought by Jehovah. 
But in the minds of many people, providence is 
thought to be only and exclusively a supernatural 
work. And this mistaken idea of God 's over-sight and 
wise superintendence of the world, has caused multi- 
tudes of honest, tho misguided thinkers, to become 
sceptical and reject the providence of God, refusing 
to believe that He has any control of the world or the 
material universe, or that He takes any interest in the 

[106] 



PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST 

affairs of men. The world to them is a machine — an 
automaton — that, like an intricate piece of machin- 
ery, is set in motion by the Maker and will continue 
to revolve in its appointed orbits; until, cankered 
with age and worn out with continuous revolution, 
it will suddenly collapse and pass out of space into 
oblivion. The idea is blasphemous. It has no support 
in reason or revelation. "A man's heart deviseth his 
way, but the Lord directeth his steps." 

God stands in a special relation to man, and the 
course of divine providence in the government of the 
world shows that His operation has a twofold aspect, 
which may be described as general and special inter- 
position. Not only is God represented as being the 
author of the universe and of those regular laws by 
which the periodical occurrence of its natural pheno- 
mena is determined ; but He is also exhibited as a dir- 
ect Cause of events, by which their temporal or spirit- 
ual welfare is produced. The notion that a miracle 
must be wrought every time there is an act of special 
care or love in behalf of an individual, or a commun- 
ity, or a nation, is erroneous and confusing. It is 
true that God has employed both methods of provi- 
dential care, the extraordinary miracle work and the 
ordinary and continuous loving care, and that He has 
produced a gradual unfolding of His purposes in the 
direction of individuals and nations in the past. And 
were it to be necessary, God can perform the miracles 
in a dynamic and supernatural way, to accomplish 

[107] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

His purpose in the control of the world. But the 
most frequent method of control is the ordinary and 
gradual process that is brought about thru His mys- 
terious influence, impressed upon the minds of men, 
and in the use that he makes of human instrumental- 
ity in co-operation with His people and mankind in 
general. In proof of the last point I refer to God's 
dealings with Joseph and Mordecai. The history of 
Joseph very clearly exemplifies the fact of the gradual 
process of divine guidance and God's dealings with 
him had a special bearing upon all the tribes of 
Israel. A careful study of Joseph's life will convince 
any one, that if he had not lived and died, or if his 
life had been different, the destiny of Israel would 
have been different, and the fate of many principali- 
ties and kingdoms and great empires would have been 
different to an extent that we have no means of cal- 
culating. If ever a human life was under the special 
care of Jehovah, Joseph 's was ; and God used him not 
for His own sake, but as an instrument thru whom to 
reveal His method of dealing in the continuous and 
ordinary way, with all nations and future ages. 
Therefore I conclude that the miracle of providence 
shown in the life of Joseph and among other peoples 
during his times, did not supplant nor in any way 
supersede or turn aside the ordinary methods of 
providence. You notice that results were brought 
about by a combination of circumstances and in- 
fluences, in all of which there is an exercise of the hum- 

[108] 



PRE-EMINENCE OF CHRIST 

an will, and the over-ruling providence of God. The 
most remarkable changes were superinduced by 
dreams in which we have no reason to believe that 
there was an overstepping of natural law. 

God penetrates and pervades the universe with 
His nature and with His disposition. Paul says: 
"that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that 
ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to 
comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and 
length and depth and height, and to know the love 
of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be 
filled with all the fullness of God !" This is the true 
conception of God. And it finds illustration in the 
beautiful story of Esther. The book that bears her 
name tells us how the Jewish race was preserved 
from destruction; how Haman was brought to jus- 
tice, and how the whole empire was made acquainted 
with the name of Jehovah ; and yet there was no mir- 
acle, tho there were many strange coincidences, won- 
derful influences and phenomenal spiritual impres- 
sions. But the main point on which the whole his- 
tory turns, is the King's sleeplessness, and an effort 
to soothe Him into slumber by reading the book of 
Chronicles of the kingdom, by which means Morde- 
cai's forgotten services were brought to remembrance. 
This restlessness of the King was evidently provi- 
dential, but it could be brought about without a mir- 
acle. The subtle influences that operate normally on 
the human mind, are by no means clearly understood. 

[109] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

But physiological and psycological investigations have 
been carried far enough to prove that there are condi- 
tions under which mind may impress mind silently, 
yet powerfully, by other than the ordinary methods, 
yet doubtless thru the operation of laws that are uni- 
form in their working. Great results have been 
brought to pass through impressions, warnings, en- 
couragements, imparted in silence, by an invisible 
power we may never know, until the mists of un- 
certainty that veil the spirits of men are cleared 
away in the revelations of eternal judgment. There- 
fore I believe that this war is providential, and that 
God is over-ruling its evil tendencies for His own glory 
and the good of the entire world ; hence I do not sym- 
pathize with a pessimistic cry that is coming up, from 
so many quarters of the earth, viz ; ' ' Christianity has 
failed and Satan and evil are dominating the world." 
Righteousness and wrong are engaged in a death 
struggle, and the former is in the minority ; but thru 
the preservation of Jesus Christ it will ultimately 
prevail and become the rule of all the nations, and 
love dynamically established in human hearts will fur- 
nish the immutable motive of human conduct. 

"Behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God within the shadow 
Keeping watch above His own. ' ' 



[110] 



CHAPTER VII 

The Second Coming of Jesus Christ 

"The Lord shall come! the earth shall quake; 
The mountains to their centre shake; 
And, withering from the vault of night, 
The stars shall pale their feeble light." 

' ' When the Son of man shall come in His glory, 
and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit 
upon the throne of His glory : and before Him shall be 
gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one 
from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the 
goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand 
but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say 
unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of my 
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from 
the foundation of the world: for I was anhungered, 
and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me 
drink : I was a stranger and ye took me in : naked and 
ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was 
in prison and ye came unto me." Math. 25 :31-36. The 
hope of the second coming of Jesus is the strongest, 
most important, and most largely effective in mould- 
ing, refining and developing a strong, unwavering 
Christian faith and shaping it into the proper scrip- 
tural group, than any other doctrine taught in the New 
Testament scriptures. It is the inspiration of a living, 

[111] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

heroic faith. It has been a comfort and solace to the 
old veteran of the Cross, an incentive to deeds of valor 
and the girding of strength to the oppressed and per- 
secuted saint, the crown of rejoicing to the devoted 
martyr and the hope of the Church in all the ages of 
the world's history. It is the supreme question of 
the present age and like Banquo 's ghost, ' ' it will not 
down." But world conditions are so cataclysmic, 
dangerous, unsatisfactory and restless, that men are 
forced, even against their mental decree or willing 
choice in the matter, to seriously consider it. Men of 
all professions, trades, stations in life and possessing 
intelligence in different degrees of development, and 
multitudes who never before the present time gave 
Jesus Christ any serious consideration, are being in- 
duced by the mysterious disturbances that obtain in 
different sections of our world, to think of Jesus and 
try to interpret His teachings about eschatological 
questions in the light of social, politcal and religious 
conditions of the present age. Gentile world-powers 
are ripe for the harvest of judgment. Protestantism 
is waning and rapidly approaching the termination of 
its usefulness and ritualism; the reviving spirit of 
phariseeism is waxing in prominence and popularity 
with the multitudes, who are eagerly seeking a worldly 
religious regime, in an effort to soothe their troubled 
consciences and avoid the necessity of giving up their 
idols of vanity, pride and foolish self-esteem. They 
are therefore turning from the pure word of God. 

[112] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

They are deceived in the belief that it is possible for 
men to have soul peace in times like the present with- 
out a personal, experimental knowledge of God. 

They are afflicted with "itching ears" and con- 
sequently cannot endure the soul-ful and soul-satisfy- 
ing doctrine. They want a mental narcotic to make 
them forget their responsibilities, and to enable them 
to spend their time in the profitless indulgence of day- 
dreams. The nations of the earth are like a troubled 
sea which cannot rest, and "whose waters cast up 
mire and dirt." There is no peace to the wickedly 
self-seeking church members, and tho they are dis- 
tressed in heart, greatly confused in mind, they will 
not accept peace upon Jesus' terms and penitently 
surrender to Him. This is the Sardis period of 
Christianity, indicating the unfulfilled works of the 
protestant reformation in its closing hours. "And 
unto the angel of the Church in Sardis write ; These 
things sayeth He that hath the seven spirits of God, 
and the seven stars ; I know thy works, that thou hast 
a name, that thou livest, and art dead." Rev. 3:1. 
Evidences of spiritual decline abound on every hand. 
Family altars are overgrown with the poisoned ivy ol 
careless neglect, and the children of Christian parents 
are being swept by the tides of spiritual disintegra- 
tion far out and away from moorings of safety, on 
the bosom of a storm-tossed ocean of wrath and eternal 
disaster. Genuine piety is almost a lost Christian art 
among many leading church officials, and even among 

[113] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

many ministers of the gospel. Many churches art 
little more than mere entertainment bureaus where 
the "giddy and the gay" can supply their vain "love 
of pleasure" and feast for awhile on the chaff of a 
semi-religious, nauseating ecclesiastical show and 
have their idiotic ears tickled by some spineless 
preacher who is too cowardly to preach the truth 
that will save men and make them "new creatures in 
Christ Jesus, ' 7 and who does not hesitate to substitutt 
the word of God with an elocutionary recital, or a 
pious vaudeville show in order as he thinks (I put 
special emphasis on the qualifying phrase) to be pop- 
ular with the "multitude whose feet are swift to do 
evil" and to draw his salary and be advertised for 
his "liberal views," "broadness," "genuine opti- 
mism" and congeniality and "easy, graceful fellow- 
ship with worldly things." Empty profession is 
largely supplanting confession in our religious life. 
Regeneration is giving away before the formal service 
of ritualism, that is fostered and promoted by worldly- 
minded churches. Jesus Christ is being driven into a 
corner by the sensualism of the day and the Holy 
spirit; grieved with the wickedness and flagrant im- 
morality of the world, He is withdrawing His influence 
from mankind in general, as He did in the days of 
Noah and Lot, and is limiting His blessing to the 
faithful ones here and there over the world ; and tho 
we can see the alarming trend of affairs, we are help- 
less to remedy the evil, but like Noah, warn the 

[114] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

people of the awful holocaust of vengeance that is 
coming upon us. 

True worship is being eliminated thru the intro- 
duction of phlegmatic and Athenian culture religion, 
and the world is becoming a moral catafalgue, on 
which is lying the dead body of protestantism. 

"How long, dear Saviour, oh, how long 
Shall that bright hour delay? 
Roll swiftly round, ye wheels of time, 
And bring the appointed day." 

' ' When shall these things be ? And what shall be the 
sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" 
Math. 24 :3. Jesus answers the above three-fold ques- 
tion in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew and in 
connection with Luke 21 :20-24. This brings us to 
the consideration of the fact that the chapter in 
Matthew's gospel contains 

Two Sets of Prophecies :: — 

one set or group referring to the destruction of Jeru- 
salem and the other set to the Parousia or second 
coming of Jesus. The prophecies related by Jesus 
and recorded by Matthew are very difficult and hard 
to understand. The casual reader will not proceed 
far in the investigation of the divine forecasts, until 
the combined and inter-dependent statements will 
produce a bewildered state of mind that in all prob- 
ability will serve to discourage any further study of 
the questions and issues involved. But the statements 

[115] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

of Jesus were intended to be understood and reflect 
light upon the future destiny of the world and the 
city of Jerusalem. He did not reveal an intangible 
mystery, or a concealed truth, that would forever re- 
main inaccessible to men and that would lure, but not 
satisfy, investigation, as a mirage, shimmering in the 
distance, attracts the wayfarer and leads him further 
on into an arid desert to perish of thirst. The order 
as set forth by Jesus reveals the first and most im- 
portant evidence of His return to the world at the 
close of the Gentile Dispensation, viz; the destruc- 
tion of the Temple and the overthrow of Jerusalem. 
The Apostles had shown the buildings of the great 
structure and He told them that there shall not be 
left here one stone upon another that shall not be 
thrown down. Then they asked the question above 
referred to, desiring to know when He would return 
to the world. The question in its construction shows, 
that the Apostles were under the supernatural inspira- 
tion of the Spirit, when the query was propounded to 
the Master, because it must be borne in mind that 
these same men, on another occasion, revealed the 
fact that they had unconsciously lapsed from the 
high ground of prophetic inspiration that they oc- 
cupied at the time they sat with Jesus on the Mount 
of Olives and exhibited so much insight into the sec- 
ret mysteries of the future, questioning Him so wise- 
ly about it, and then returning to the provincial theory 
of the Messianic reign, because they expected Jesus 

[116] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

to assume the throne of David and taking the leader- 
ship of the Jews, draw the sword in behalf of Israel's 
freedom and restoration. They were, therefore dis- 
appointed when He died on Calvary, and many of 
them gave np in hopeless despair and thought that 
all was lost. They evidently identified the throne of 
promised future dominion, with present affairs and ex- 
pected to see the accomplishment of that promise dur- 
ing the natural and that immediate age. But Jesus 
placed the messianic age far beyond the time of Jeru- 
salem's destruction, altho He did correlate that great 
event with it, in the sense that the overthrow of the 
city of David and the demolition of the Temple were 
premonitions of that glorious event. He makes this 
matter very clear in what He said to the Apostles 
and which is recorded by Luke in his twenty-first 
chapter, viz; "And when ye shall see Jerusalem com- 
passed with armies, then know the desolation thereof 
is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the 
mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it 
depart out ; and let not them that are in the countries 
enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, 
that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 
But woe unto them that are with child, and to them 
that give suck in those days! for there shall be great 
distress in the land and wrath upon this people. Ana 
they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be 
led away captive into all nations : and Jerusalem shall 
be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of 

[117] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

the Gentiles be fulfilled." The above prophecy was 
literally fulfilled when the Roman army under Titus 
destroyed Jerusalem about the year of our Lord 70. 
However, this terrible occurence did not happen for 
nearly half-a-century after it was predicted, and 
every statement made by the Saviour can be verified 
by the records of profane history. And the "Holy 
City" is under Gentile dominion today. The pale 
crescent of Mahomet waves in triumph over the sacred 
tombs of Judean kings. All the combined powers of 
earth and hell cannot wrest the city from the dominion 
of a Gentile power "until the times of the Gentiles 
be fulfilled." I pity and love and honor the Jews, 
but I could not encourage any movement among them 
looking to their re-establishment in their beloved city. 
It is still under the arbitrary judgment of God and 
Israel must continue to be the scattered nation — a 
peculiar, persecuted, down-trodden, tho miraculously 
preserved — people, wanderers in every land, in every 
age to be hated and despised, yet leaving the impress 
of a most wonderful personality upon all those peoples 
among whom they chance to abide, until the moment 
for their emancipation, that is concealed in God's 
mind, and not known to the angels, and that Jesus as 
the "Son of man" refused to tell. 

Then and not before, will Israel be re-gathered 
from among the peoples where they have been driven 
by an angry God, and Jerusalem shall be "safely in- 
habited by them," during the age of peace and uni- 

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THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

versal righteousness, that will be enjoyed by all per- 
sons who are so fortunate as to accept Christ as their 
personal Saviour in this age or during the Gentile 
dispensation — both Jew and Gentile. But after its 
close, no class of people will have access to Jesus or 
enjoy gospel privileges, except the Jewish remnant, 
Isaiah's "tenth" or "teil tree," who will return to 
Jerusalem in an unconverted state of soul, but who 
will, just prior to the destruction of Anti-Christ and 
the complete overthrow of all world power, experience 
the performance of the miracle of grace in the regen- 
eration of their souls, wrought by the supernatural 
power of the Holy Spirit ; and they will gladly accept 
Jesus as their Saviour and Prince, and "crown Him 
Lord of all." The restoration of the Jews and the 
second advent of Jesus are to occur almost simultan- 
eously and at the close of the "Gentile Dispensa- 
tion;" but He kindly, tho positively, refused to tell 
the time when that would happen. He said that it 
was a secret that no one knew and that no class of 
created beings would be permitted to know, until it 
actually occurred. 

As the divine "Son of God," He possessed the 
knowledge of the end of all things and of the end of 
the world. But He came to do the Will of His Father 
and reveal Him to the world, and it was not consistent 
with the divine purpose of His Father to make any 
revelation regarding the day and hour when He 
would send Jesus to "judge the world in righteous- 

[119] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

ness. " Jesus being a personal divinity and equal to 
His Father, must preserve the honor, integrity and 
divine right of His Father in the revelation of truth, 
the same as in every other sphere of life involving the 
salvation of men, and the ultimate destiny of all 
things according to the Will of His Father. Hence, 
He could not make the secret known without doing 
violence to Deity, and if He had assumed any author- 
ity that was not vested in Him by Jehovah, He would 
have forfeited the substitutional and vicarious repres- 
entation of the Holy spirit, who was equal to the 
Father and the Son. In that event the Church would 
be without a Shekinah of power, and the world would 
not have His radiant light, dispelling its darkness, 
and leading many of its benighted subjects to the 
"Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." 
If Jesus would not tell His holy angels, and kept the 
secret from His beloved Apostles, do you think it is 
reasonable that He has revealed the secret to some 
modern apostle of a strange cult ? Do you not think 
that it is unmitigated presumption, and blasphemous, 
for any person to undertake to tell the day or the 
month or year in which Jesus will return ? 

Jesus warned us against false teachers and said, 
"take heed that no man deceive you." As there were 
treacherous, lying prophets in Israel — wolves in 
sheep 's clothing, — deceivers and deceived, heralds of 
self-made oracles, who preached smooth things to com- 
fort those who should have covered their souls with 

[120] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

sackcloth of mourning, and thus betrayed them into 
a deeper damnation ; men who for the sake of reward 
justified the ungodly, and thru cunning deception 
imposed godless teachings upon the unsuspecting and 
confiding heirs of righteousness, thereby leading them 
into the meshes of Satan's snare, forcing them to com- 
promise with evil and lose credit for righteousness 
and honorable standing with God, so Jesus lovingly 
and in generous mercy has shown us very clearly, and 
far in advance of their coming, that the false teacher 
would prey upon the Church as false prophets did 
upon Israel. Hear Him : ' ' For many shall come in my 
name, saying, I am Christ ; and shall deceive many. ' ' I 
believe that the Devil has more preachers in the pulpit 
today than Jesus, but is that sad misfortune a suffi- 
cient reason to justify us in the opinion that Christ has 
failed, or that He is destined ultimately to fail in the 
accomplishment of His mission in the world? The 
very first Church that was ever organized, came into 
being under the Master's supervision, He personally 
directing in its formation, constitution and establish- 
ment, and one of its charter members, Judas Iscariot, 
was a thief and a devil. In the proper time Judas was 
eliminated and the Church was purged from the taint 
of his contaminating presence, and he "took his own 
place" and one that his conduct richly merited and 
from which miserable fate he cannot hope to be re- 
stored to the opportunities of gospel blessings — the 
very gospel that he preached, abused and distrusted 

[121] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

during the time of his association with the Saviour 
and the beginning of the New Testament Church. 
Jesus will bring this world to its knees, either in peni- 
tence, or eternal judgment, and every tongue shall 
swear before God, in acknowledgment of His divinity, 
spotless integrity, unimpeachable veracity, unerring 
prophetic truth and unswerving justice. Nor will the 
Church ultimately fail to accomplish the eternal pur- 
pose "whereunto it was sent." Jesus said to Peter: 
' ' Thou art clean but not all ' ' — meaning Judas — and 
" if I wash thee not thou hast no part with me, ' ' which 
conveys the idea that Jesus must wash and keep clean 
from pollution and moral defilements all Churches, in 
every age and to the close of the Gentile Dispensation. 
He is preserving His Body. He is watching over it 
with sleepless vigil. He died for it, and rose again 
that it might be saved for His own special use. It is a 
vessel fitted and prepared in all of its deportment and 
delineations for the Master's glory and honor. Were 
the Church to be destroyed or taken away from Him, 
heaven would be turned into pandemonium, discordant 
notes would again trill the strings of the harp of life in 
angel hands, the scepter of dominion and universal 
sway would fall from the hand of heaven's King, and 
eternity would witness a tragedy a thousand times 
worse than that of Eden, and one that would involve 
all created beings, in earth and heaven and hell, viz; 
the defeat of the Second Adam and the destruction 
of His eternal Kingdom. Nature could not survive 

[122] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

the shock and endure the awful calamity, but the 
universe of God would immediately collapse, and the 
chaos of pre-historic ages, with its scenes of melting 
planets, erratic wandering stars, flaming meteors, 
flashing against the lurid glare of unchained thunder 
bolts, roaring in terrible explosions above the bellow- 
ing of the storm of destruction that held the world in 
its grip, would claim the rights of dominion, reverse 
the order of nature, displace the law of gravity and 
bring the glorious creation under the judgment of 
eternal oblivion. But, such a calamity will never • — 
cannot occur ■ — in the history of our world. Jesus 
has triumphed over death and hell and the grave. He 
is the "death of death and hell's destruction," and He 
holds dominion from the ends of the earth to the re- 
motest bounds of eternity. He is "God of very God" 
and holds the scepter of power and reigns in righteous- 
ness and unsullied glory ' ' from everlasting to everlast- 
ing." The Church of Christ, therefore, is secure and 
is destined to accomplish her mission, in spite of the 
evil work of hypocrites, false teachers and faithless 
Church members. Do not be uneasy about the future 
prospect of the Church, rather burden your soul with 
serious thoughts of God and your duty to Him, that 
should be faithfully discharged in view of the final 
Judgment and in obedient Church life. The Church 
is founded on a rock, and tho the earth may shake and 
tremble, the Church will stand; the ancient glory of 
kingdoms departs, nations rise and fall with the var~ 

[123] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

iant tides of political change as the ebb and flow of 
ocean currents, the world is growing old and the lights 
of heaven are fading and everything visible is sub- 
ject to change, but the Church of Jesus is marching 
grandly toward the goal of final glory and everlasting 
deliverance, from the finite and carnal world-life, to 
her enthronement in the presence of her great Head 
and Lord. Let modern Uzzas ' keep their hands off the 
Church — the ark of God — and go forward with the 
marching hosts of Israel. "For the time is come 
that judgment must begin at the house of God; and 
if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that 
obey not the gospel of God?" I Pet. 4:17. "Do ye 
not know that the saints shall judge the world? and 
if the world shall be judged by you are ye unworthy 
to judge the smallest matters?" I Cor. 6 :12. 

"The Lord shall come, but not the same 
As once in lowliness He came, 
A humble man before His foes, 
A weary man and full of woes." 

The fact that Jerusalem was used as a beginning 
place for the introduction of the gospel enterprise, the 
establishment of the Church, the rejection of the Jews, 
the induction of the Holy Spirit as the substitute of 
Jesus in the Church, and the inauguration of the Gen- 
tile Dispensation, is clear to any ordinary reader of 
the scriptures. Then, is it not also true that Jerusalem 
is vitally included in the divine program of God, for 
the conclusion of a finished redemption, involving His 

[124] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

chosen people, the termination of the world-wide evan- 
gelistic enterprise, the glorification and incorporation 
of the Gentile Chnreh, with the re-gathered Jews as 
the special subjects of the Davidic covenant, at the 
time of their restoration to the divine favor and their 
establishment in the land of Palestine ? It is then that 
they will accept Jesus as their Messiah and the time 
when the Kingdom shall be restored to Israel. Since 
their rejection the Kingdom has existed, only repres- 
entatively, the Church, — established under Gentile 
control, thru the personal leadership of the Holy Spir- 
it, — being its chief executive, has locally and sover- 
eignly speaking, filled the Kingdom sphere in the 
world. The Church has the administration of King 
dom authority and power, being endowed unctiously, 
with its regal prerogative of righteousness, and will 
continue to hold it in virtue of divine right and invest- 
iture, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled ' ' and 
Jesus shall be established on David 's throne and reign 
over Israel as "King in Zion." And so all Israel 
shall be saved : as it is written, * ' There shall come out 
of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness 
from Jacob : For this is my covenant with them when 
I shall take away their sins." Ro. II : 26, 27. Zion, in 
old Testament prophecy and New Testament nomen- 
clature, means the Church — not the Kingdom. Jesus 
dwells in the Church, accepting it as His body. He 
will continue to abide with it thru the ages, and up to 
the closing hours of Gentile world dominion, then He 

[125] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

will come out of it — Zion — and visibly appear in 
the character of Israel's "Deliverer." The Kingdom 
will then absorb the Church and " the kingdoms of 
this world will become the Kingdom of God and His 
Christ." Jerusalem will be the seat of judgment. 
The glory throne will be established on "Zion's hill" 
within her sacred precincts. Jesus wove a skein of 
prophetic utterances around the ancient "city of 
David," the Metropolis of the Jews, and made it the 
base of all divine movements and operations that have 
ever been launched by His Father in the world. Her 
material destiny involved the issues of life and of 
death, and from abandoned sanctuaries poured forth 
life-giving streams of heavenly benedictions, blessings 
of peace, and immortal hope for all the world, like- 
wise the spirit of judgment and divine maledictions 
upon sinners of every age. The fall of Jerusalem is, 
therefore, the most distinguishing and fundamental 
evidence of the second coming of Jesus. That terrible 
event was necessary to the extension of the gospel 
Kingdom to all peoples, thru Church autonomy. The 
nest had to be broken up before the eagles of heaven 
would fly into "all the world" with the glad-tidings 
of salvation for all men. Jerusalem stood in the way, 
hindering divine movements, hence it was impossible 
for God to completely and properly introduce the 
Gentile Dispensation of grace, so long as it existed. 
He therefore put the sword of vengeance in the hand 
of Titus and moved him to destroy it, and the world 

[126] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

knows the sequel. And furthermore, Jesus so inti- 
mately connected the fall of Jerusalem in the chain of 
prophetic evidences that heralded His second Advent 
as the resurrected and glorified Messiah of Israel, that 
He could not have returned in fulfillment of prophecy, 
if the city had remained intact; and according to His 
own word, His return to the world the second time 
was contigent upon that catastrophe and would have 
to be postponed until it took place. Its demolition 
and ruin thru the wrath of Jehovah may appear to 
sentimentalists to be cruel and tyrannical; neverthe- 
less it it is a mercy sent in disguise, in that it reveals 
the stately steppings of God coming to judgment. 
But, — "if I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right 
hand forget her cunning. ' ' 

' ' Ye visions of bright heavenly birth, 

Ye glories of the latter day, 
Descend upon the fallen earth, 

And chase the shades of night away. 
Bid streams of love and mercy flow 
Through every vale of human woe, 
Till sin, and care, and sorrow cease, 
And all the world is hushed to peace." 

In harmony with the discussion of events occur- 
ring in the history of Jerusalem, let us briefly notice 
some evidences of the Second Coming, that is men- 
tioned by Mathew in his twenty-fourth chapter. 
There is a group of passages from verse 4-14 inclusive, 
that bearing upon the subject, have a two-fold mean- 
ing and a double interpretation, viz; they set forth (1) 

[127] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

a description of the character of the age — wars, inter- 
national conflicts, famines, pestilences, persecutions 
and false Christs. A memorable passage from Dan- 
iel's prophecy is in point: "And after threescore and 
two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for him- 
self : and the people of the prince that shall come shall 
destroy the city and the sanctuary ; and the end there- 
of shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war 
desolations are determined." Dan. 9:26. The above 
passage contains three distinct prophetic events, all of 
which have long since happened and find record in the 
pages of profane history and of course, in the Bible. 

(a) It is asserted that "Messiah would be cut off," 
which was literally fulfilled in the death of Jesus. 

(b) "And the people of the prince that shall come 
shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, ' ' which event 
transpired when the Eoman army, under the leader- 
ship of Titus, destroyed Jerusalem, (c) The last 
statement has special application to the internal con- 
ditions of the Jews just prior to the fall of the city, 
but it also has an accommodated meaning and its lati- 
tude reaches to the end of the age, including all other 
items of prophecy mentioned by Jesus, and recorded 
in the twenty-fourth chapter of Mathew's gOjspel. 
Every age of the world has witnessed the repetition of 
nearly all (if not all completely), since they were re- 
vealed by the Master two thousand years ago, but no 
period of the world's history has possessed a more 
accurate and detailed repetition of each and every item 

[128] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

of prophecy that He said would take place before He 
came again, than the present age. His statement about 
"war and rumours of war" has a plethora of accom- 
plishment that no past time has ever known. 

The world is practically under arms and rumourb 
of prospective conflicts are too numerous to mention 
and it is not necessary to do so, because the public 
press of the day keeps the matter well advertised. 
The European war furnishes conditions that estab- 
lish every item of verse seven. Read and study it in 
the light of the European cataclysm, remember the 
impending judgment, and in reverent fear and wor- 
shipful faith, commit the "keeping your soul to Him 
against that day : " " For nation shall rise against na 
tion, and kingdom against kingdom : and there shall be 
famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers 
places." What a spectacle for civilization! Europe 
ablaze with the dragon torch of war ! Millions dead on 
foreign fields, piled in trenches like disease-inf ecte I 
hogs — waiting for the trumpet of judgment to sum- 
mon them to appear before the "King of kings," to 
witness earth's last battle, — "Gog and Magog," and 
millions more crowded into prison camps, to suffer the 
discomforts of poor food, unsanitary quarters, the 
ravages of vermin and constant exposure to infectious 
diseases! Other millions maimed for life, facing the 
alternative of a helpless, dependent career, or the cow- 
ard 's rash madness, expressed in suicide. Thousands 
are going that way, choosing to die by their own hand, 

[129] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

rather than live as public charges upon the charity 
of others. The little mountain Kingdom of Albania, 
has been practically obliterated and swept from the 
map. Her people literally starved to death. Belgium 
and Poland and Serbia are begging for bread, and like 
Lazarus of old, they would be satisfied with the crumbs 
that fall from some rich nation's table. Earthquakes 
have shaken sections of Italy, Turkey and Serbia 
since the beginning of the war, and tremors have been 
felt in other countries. 

It is a time of great peril. It is not a time of 
peace. This is not the day for the ' ' Prince of Peace. ' ' 
It is a day of trouble and wrath and calamity. It 
reminds one of the picture drawn in the scriptures of 
the Ante-Diluvian age. Jesus mentioned Noah > 
flood and showed the similarity of world conditions 
that would obtain in the closing period of the Gentile 
Dispensation and that age, saying, "But as the days 
of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of 
man be. For as in the days that were before the flood 
they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving 
in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the 
Ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them 
all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man 
be." Christ in the above statements makes compari- 
sons between the. age of Noah and the closing period 
of the Gentile age that discourages the theory that 
is held by many true saints of God and scholarly 
preachers, viz; that the world will eventually be con- 

[130] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

verted and christianized, so universally influenced and 
dominated by gospel principles, that the Millenium 
will be established prior to His Second Coming. 
Evangelization is world-wide and the Church is re- 
creant to the task assigned to it by Jesus, if it with- 
holds the gospel from the Heathen in foreign fields or 
the lost in the homeland. But Jesus never gave any 
encouragement to the opinion that the world would 
ever be universally christianized, before He returned 
in person to take charge of the Kingdom, and "rule 
the nations with a rod of iron." He did teach that 
Christianity would ultimately triumph, and sin would 
be eliminated from the world, but He identifies that 
happy period with the time of His visible manifesta- 
tion, which takes place immediately at the appointed 
time for the great Tribulation epoch to close and 
which event is still future. He says, "When the Son 
of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels 
with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His 
glory : And before Him shall be gathered all nations : 
and He shall separate them one from another, as a 
shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And He 
shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on 
the left." Two classes of persons appear before 
Jesus in this ' ' judgment of the nations, ' ' Math. 25 :31- 
33. The christian (sheep) populace is divided from 
the unbelieving (goat) class, which proves conclu- 
sively that there will never be a period in the history 
of the world when Jesus will not have true believing, 

[131] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

consecrated people to serve Him and "watch" for His 
return to the earth, but it is also just as true that there 
will never be a time during the Gentile age, when sin- 
ners (goat characters) will not be present in the earth 
and largely in control of world affairs. Now this 
brings us (2) to a consideration of the second group 
of scriptures that mentions those events that charac- 
terize the ' ' end of the age. ' ' Prior to the * ' end of the 
age" the gospel will have been preached among all na- 
tions for a witness, as it was heralded among the 
nations contiguous to Jerusalem, before it was des- 
troyed; then, says Jesus, "the end will come." He 
does not say that the nations will be converted or thav> 
a majority of those peoples among whom the gospel is 
preached will believe it and accept Him, but that it 
shall be preached for a witness in all the world and 
among all nations and following that achievement, 
the end will come. And He emphatically teaches, in 
the comparison that He draws between the times of 
Noah and the present Gentile age, that the world will 
grow worse, socially, politically and religiously, wax- 
ing in murderous licentiousness, vicious immorality, 
intemperate greed, domestic infidelity and blasphem- 
ous atheism. In the days of Noah, the earth genera- 
tions had become so besotted with sensuality and the 
love of carnal pleasures, that the knowledge of virtue 
and soul purity had perished from their hearts and 
memories. They were bestial, proud, implacable 
tyrannical, atheistic. They lost the knowledge of 

[132] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

God thru the indulgence of carnal desires and passions 
and the suppression of the better and more god-like 
attributes of their natures. The better self was cruci- 
fied, conscience crushed, the moral judgment de- 
throned, and the best elements of mind and the most 
ennobling traits of character were sacrificed on the 
altars of unrestrained sensual indulgences and godless, 
immoral practices. They departed from the faith of 
their fathers and scoffed mockingly at the threatened 
deluge. They sinned away their day of grace, and lost 
their birthright — selling it willingly — for the grati- 
fication of unholy and depraved desires. They did not 
possess the knowledge of God in any degree, so far as 
the record shows. And this condition did not result 
from the failure upon God's part, to provide them 
with a true oracle from heaven, that was administered 
under the unction of the Holy Spirit, and delivered 
by a divinely called preacher. Noah preached one 
hundred and twenty years and never secured a con- 
vert outside of his own family. And he preached un- 
der the direction of the Holy Spirit too. But Methuse- 
lah, a son of one of the most highly honored believers 
who ever lived on the earth, and who was translated 
and went to heaven without dying, evidently perished 
in the flood. He lived nine hundred and sixty nine 
years, then died and went to hell. The home is the 
foundation of the state and, incidentally, also of the 
Church, and it must be preserved in purity, peace and 
conjugal happiness, if we would preserve the govern- 

[133] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

ment, foster a knowledge of God, advance religion 
and maintain high standards of true, benevolent 
ethicalism. I made the above remark in order to call 
attention to a statement that Jesus made about matri- 
monial affairs during the Ante-Diluvian age, and He 
used it to illustrate similar conditions that will be the 
practice of vast multitudes of people, when He comes 
the second time to the world: "For as in the dayn 
that were before the flood, they were eating and drink- 
ing, — being prosperous but ungrateful, happy tho 
extremely wicked, living in ease and luxury and dense 
ignorance, experimentally, of the impending day of 
wrath, and knew not until the flood came and too£ 
them all away, so it will be in the days of the Son 
of man," says Jesus. His coming will find the vast 
majority of mankind unprepared spiritually, and ig- 
norant and unalarmed about that great event, and it 
will come upon them unexpectedly, like a "thief in the 
night/' But the expression, "marrying and giving 
in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the 
Ark," is the one with which we are at this juncture? 
specially concerned. He gives us plenty of latitude 
for the interpretation of the passage, and it is easy 
for a thinking person to see a more than ordinary 
meaning underlying the phrase, "giving in marriage.*' 
Soul-affinity in sexual relations between the sexes, was 
commonly practiced in that far-distant day. They 
were very modern and up-to-date in social affairs, and 
if the affinity did not suit and the relations happened 

[134] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

not to be congenial, they seemed to have been at liberty 
to form other and more agreeable relations with the 
opposite sex. Do you ever hear of things like that 
happening today ? Is it not a fact that the divorce evil 
has become so common among us that we have come to 
look upon it not only with allowance, but with passive 
endorsement? However, we have not reached the 
Ante-Diluvian stage of moral depravity and marital 
infidelity, generally speaking, tho in many sections of 
our world we are well on the way and making great 
progress in the downward course of moral deprecia- 
tion. But bad as conditions were, marriage did not 
entirely pass away in Noah's time, tho in connection 
with the legal, divine relation, concubinage was un- 
blushingly practiced by all classes. The original word 
that Jesus used in the aramaic tongue, indicates the 
fact of "giving in marriage" to be according to the 
definition mentioned above. And when we remember 
that Jesus mentioned the depravity of a past age to 
portray the evil condition of a future age of the 
world, His description of spiritual matters and im- 
moral tendencies that are before us and destined to 
grow worse, is certainly not re-assuring to a post- 
millennialist. However, the "Captain of our Salva- 
tion" has faithfully warned us in advance that we 
might be prepared to meet difficulties as they come, do 
our best and leave results with God. Let us therefore 
continually keep in mind the warning that He gave, 
viz ; " But as the days of Noah were, so shall the com- 

[ 135 ] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

ing of the Son of man be." In concluding this divi- 
sion of the subject I offer what is to my mind one of 
the strongest and most convincing proofs that can be 
produced in favor of the pre-millenial theory of the 
Second Coming. Why did not Jesus mention Enoch 
or Elijah, in addition to Noah ? They were translated 
and went to the eternal world in their bodies. 

They never experienced death, and from the day 
of their birth and up to the present time, they have oc- 
cupied their physical structures, and while eternal 
ages roll, they will enjoy a glorified state, without 
having entered it thru death. Moses was evidently 
raised from the dead, and dwells in his original body, 
being a type of the resurrected Gentile Church, that 
was justified and redeemed by Jesus under the law. 
Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus in the mount of 
transfiguration, and were given a revelation of the 
second coming of Jesus ; but Enoch, who has the dis- 
tinction of being the first person in the history of the 
w r orld and the first one in the development of the 
plan of redemption to mention it, was not present. 
But Jesus did not say one word about either of them, 
when discussing the judgment of the nations, at His 
return to the world, and also the evidences of that 
stupendous event. However, Noah and the deluge are 
given an important place in His discussion, and it 
appears conclusive, therefore, to the writer, that He 
had a special truth to relate that vitally concerned the 
Church, rejected Israel and the world at large, warn* 

[136] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

ing and instructing in the mysteries of eschatological 
or last things, and encouraging the Gentile Church to 
persevere in godliness, courageous devotion to Him, as 
its great Head, spiritual worship, and to steer clear of 
Judaizing ritualistic religion. This also distributed 
the "gospel of the kingdom" in all the world, and in- 
spired the hearts of the scattered remnants of Jacob in 
the hope that they would be re-gathered and restored 
to their lost dominion ' ' at the end of the age. " Hence 
it is very plain that Noah was used as a type of elect 
Israel, who will be preserved during the period of 
tribulation, when the anti-Christ will reign as the su- 
preme ruler of the combined kingdoms and nations of 
the world, but which event cannot take place during 
the Church age and the residence of that institution — 
the body of Christ — being filled as it is and will con- 
tinue to he, during its existence in the world, by the 
Holy Spirit, the personal vice-gerent of Jesus, who, as 
His Viceroy in the earth, will prevent the rise and 
enthronement of Anti- Christ, during the interval be- 
tween the first Church Pentecost and the completion 
of its evangelistic mission, in the closing period of the 
world's history, "the last days," or the end of the age 
of mercy or grace. All of which proves, conclusively, 
that Gentile world-powers will grow worse, increasing 
in more ungodliness, falling more completely under 
the control of Satan, who is preparing them for the 
reception of his personal, incarnated representative 
or viceroy, at the "end of the age," tho evil will be 

[137] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

restrained and wickedness hindered, in all lines of its 
development, by the Holy Spirit in the Church, so 
long as the Church is in the world. Satan will never 
be the controlling genius of the age, the master of the 
world situation, during the tenure of the Church and 
the Spirit dispensation. But, if the fact that Noah 
preached for more than a century without getting a 
convert has any particular reference to this age (and 
who can disprove it?) we need not be surprised if the 
countless numbers of elect Gentiles are called in be- 
fore the coming of Messiah, and a period of fruitless 
evangelism, extending thru many years of missionary 
and arduous christian labors, follows as a result. The 
Church at the present time is losing its "leavening 
power' ' and hardly an echo of its voice is heard, 
mingling with the confusion and multitudinous din 
of national and international affairs and conflicts. 
It is a time of political babel and the world is in an 
uproar of excitement, distressing apprehension and 
unrest. These conditions may be temporarily im- 
proved or even eliminated entirely for a time, but only 
to return with more force and effect in the future. 
The world will never enjoy a permanent, lasting 
peace until Jesus comes. Furthermore, we should not 
be surprised if the Church should enter a period of 
time that will be characterized by engrossing wicked- 
ness, persecution and active opposition to Jesus, and 
when the oracle of God will fail to convict the lost, 
and no salvations reward the preachers of the gospel. 

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THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

Noah's fruitless preaching under the direction 
of the Holy Spirit, in his day, unerringly foreshad- 
owed a similar disheartening condition that will occur 
during the Church age. And it must still be future, 
because there has never teen an age since Noah's time 
that God did not have an elect people in the world and 
salvations could not be secured thru scriptural meth- 
ods of work, and it does not apply to the present time, 
because the gospel is acheiving many remarkable vic- 
tories in different parts of the world and particularly 
among Heathen peoples; nor does it have any refer- 
ence to the tribulation period, because there will not 
be any evangelistic work or gospel preaching in that 
age, forasmuch as it will be under the control of Sat- 
an, the Church and Holy Spirit being withdrawn from 
the world and at the end of this time of horror and 
unspeakable trouble, the gospel will be preached by an 
angel, but it will not be attended by conversions. To 
anti-christian hosts, it will unfold the burden of judg- 
ment; but to Israel, that have been miraculously 
preserved thru the tribulation, it will be the gospel 
of the Kingdom, because they are the heirs of the 
Kingdom and Jesus promised to restore it to the Jews. 
Therefore, the conclusion forces itself on one's mind, 
that Noah's time of salvationless preaching pointed to 
a spiritual decline that is beyond the present, and 
that falls in the order of affairs, this side the future 
time for the return of Jesus. 

Now let us come to the conclusion of the whole 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

matter. When will Jesus come the second time? 
What will be the form of his appearance and what 
events will characterize his return to the world? 
Briefly, and in the fear of an omnipotent, omniscient 
and omnipresent God, the Judge of all peoples and 
kindreds and tongues, I will endeavor to answer the 
above grave and solemnly impressive questions. 
Jesus informs us that He will come at the close of the 
age, (Math. 24:14) meaning the gospel or Church age, 
and which incident is one of the hidden secrets of 
eternity, and as we have before seen, is not known to 
angels and was not revealed to His disciples; for he 
said, "but of that day and hour knoweth no man, no 
not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. ' ' And 
God, in His wisdom and goodness and in the merciful 
protection, preservation and the best interest of the 
human race has kept the secret of time and date for 
closing of the gospel age, shut up in His great, good, 
loving heart. God has not witheld any truth or fact 
or incident of the present life, or of the eternal one 
that is impending, that could be of help to us in solv- 
ing the vexing problems that are involved in the ad- 
justment of our lives to His Will, in christian rela- 
tions, or that would cast sufficient light upon the enig- 
matical future, to enable us to enjoy the elevating ex- 
perience of immortal hope, and walk in the lustrous 
guidance of His benign counsel all "the days of our 
life. ' ? If some angel were dispatched to this world 
with authority to reveal that mysterious secret of 

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THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

eternity, the disclosure of the "day and the hour" 
would plunge the world into pandemonium. We 
could not endure the shock of its terrible recital, 
material progress would stop, the wheels of commerce 
refuse to roll, overwhelming floods of confusion cover 
the world, civilization collapse into irretrievable ruin 
and horrors infernal and indescribable, supplanting 
peace and banishing hope from our shores, would 
stalk abroad in the land. We do not need to know 
the secret. We can live better without it. Our special 
duty regarding His coming is to keep in readiness for 
it, love His appearing and watch for it continually. 
Be calm, studious, faithful and go forward with your 
work, proving your belief of the doctrine of His Sec- 
ond Advent by your holy, reverent and consecrated 
life. Pope ? s words are relevant : 

"Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven 
And tho no science, is fairly worth the seven." 

It is enough for us to know that He will return to 
the world and having said that it would be at the 
"end of the age." We should reverently avoid any fur- 
ther investigation of a matter that can never be known 
until it actually takes place. But when Jesus does 
return, what will be form or manner of His manifesta- 
tion? Will His appearance be visible to the whole 
world at that time? The first appearance will occur 
when Jesus leaves the mediatorial throne in heaven, 
where He has reigned as the representative of the 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

human race, and the advocate of His people, since the 
date of His ascension to "the right hand of tne 
Father. ' ' He will come thru Paradise and bring the 
saved of all the ages, who have been gathered there 
from among all races, and out of every generation of 
men who have lived in this world, from and including 
the last believer, who may die before the close of this 
age. Paul throws a flood of light upon this subject: 
But ye are come unto the Mount Zion, and unto the 
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and 
to an innumerable company of angels, to the general 
assembly and Church of the firstborn, written in hea- 
ven, and to God the judge of all and to the spirits cf 
just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of 
the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that 
speaketh better things than that of AbeL" Heb. 12 :22- 
24. Mount Zion in the text is where the throne of 
David, upon which Christ will reign during the 
messianic age, will be erected and it was situated 
outside the gates of the city of David, who mentions it 
in his first Psalm : ' ' Yet have I set my King upon my 
holy hill of Zion," but the Mount Zion of the future 
age is represented in the separate place for the right- 
eous dead, — Paradise, because the "spirits of just 
men made perfect " "Whose names are written in 
heaven," — the heaven of heavens, mentioned by 
Solomon, the third heaven of Paul and John, and the 
"heavenly Jerusalem" of the text, are subjects of 
the prospective reign of Messiah, the King over the 

[142] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

Davidic Kingdom, that will be established simultan- 
eously with the gathering in of Jewish remnants, 
hence Paradise is related to heaven as Mount Zion of 
David's time was related to Jerasulam. The names 
of all persons recorded in the eleventh chapter ox 
Hebrews, the twelve Apostles, who will reign jointly 
with Jesus in the Messianic age, and the righteous 
dead of all past ages and those who in future time 
will enter it thru death, are subjects of "mount Zion" 
and will one day be glorified and reign with Jesus on 
the earth. A disembodied soul cannot be glorified 
apart from the body that it once occupied, hence 
they are barred from the "heavenly Jerusalem" until 
after the resurrection and the consummation of the 
redemptive work of Jesus on the earth. ' ' Then cometh 
the end, — the end of the Davidic Kingdom on earth, 
— when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to 
God, even the Father : when He shall have put down 
all rule and all authority and power." Then God, 
the Father, who has given Jesus supreme control of 
the universe, authority as Judge of all creatures in 
heaven and earth and hell, putting all under sub- 
jection to Jesus, the Father excepting himself, will ac- 
cept the glorified Kingdom, and we will be received 
into His presence and the "heavenly Jerusalem" 
will be our eternal home. It should be remembered 
that Jesus did not enter into His Father's presence 
in His disembodied form, but He did enter Paradise 
and told the penitent thief that He could go with 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

Him to that place, and during that day. God the 
Father is not enthroned in Paradise; because, how 
would it have been possible for Jesus to have gone to 
Paradise and not to have seen or met His Father? 
And He refused to let Mary touch Him after His 
resurrection, assigning as the reason for it, — " touch 
me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father;" 
hence, He did not go to heaven at death, but to Para- 
dise, the intermediate place of reception for the 
righteous dead ; and God's throne is in the latter place, 
heaven, for Jesus said it was, and enjoined the Apos- 
tles against the use of vain repetitions or profane 
covenant oaths in prayer, saying, - — "But I say unto 
you, Swear not at all: neither by heaven; for it is 
God's throne." Then if Jesus was not permitted to 
ascend to His Father at death, that is, enter heaven, 
without His body, is it reasonable for ordinary be- 
lievers to expect to receive such an honor ? But Jesus 
did ascend to His Father after His resurrection and 
entered upon His mediatorial duties as the High Priest 
of souls and He continually makes "intercession for 
us according to the Will of God. ' ' 

When Jesus returns to the earth, He will come 
thru Paradise and bring its inhabitants with Him to 
His station in the mid-heaven. ' ' For if we believe that 
Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep in 
Jesus, will God bring with Him. ' ' I Thes. 4 :14. The 
language of Paul is self-explanatory and does not need 
comment or elaboration to bring out the fact, intro- 

[144] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

duced by him, viz ; that the dead in Christ ascended 
to Paradise and lived there, until He took them oat of 
it and brought them into the mid-heaven. And when 
He enters that place on His return to this earth, the 
disembodied souls, — ' ' spirits of just men made per- 
fect, ' > — w iH never be separated from Him again and 
will not have long to wait for their bodies, for the 
resurrection of the bodies of believers will be near. 
Jesus will not descend to the earth immediately after 
He takes His station in the firmament, (Gen. 2:14 & 
16) that is, when the "sun became black as sack- 
cloth of hair, and the moon became as blood." (Re\. 
6:12); but the resurrected and the living believer 
will be "caught up together with them (resurrected 
believers who will precede the living believers to the 
meeting with Jesus), in the clouds, so shall we ever 
be with the Lord." I Thes. 4:17. This reunion of 
soul and body will constitute the rapture of saints 
and bring to pass in our experiences the promised 
change from "mortality to immortality and from 
corruption to the incorruption, " and as to the time 
required to accomplish it, Paul tells us that it will 
done in the "twinkling of an eye." "Behold, I 
show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we 
shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of 
an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall 
sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and 
we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put 
on incorruption and this mortal must put on immort- 

[145] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

ality." I Cor. 15:51-53. The descent of Jesus to the 
mid-heavens will be spectacular, displaying redeemed 
souls of all past ages in the glorious equipment of un- 
changing i mm ortality, innumerable hosts of angels in 
its train and acclaimed by the voice of the Arch- 
angel and the sound of the trumpets of jubilee ; but I 
do not believe that it will be visible to the goat na- 
tions of earth. Evidently, the glory of His appearance 
in the star-spangled heavens will be concealed from 
evil doers who are living on the earth at that time, as 
the glory of His resurrected body was witheld from 
His disciples; and it will therefore not be visible to 
wicked men, tho it will be revealed in all its res- 
plendent beauty and indescribable glory to the Church 
and of course to believers of pre-christian times, for 
they will participate, personally, in the rapturous 
occasion. But the Church will slip away to Him 
who is concealed from earth-nations, in the clouds, — 
natural clouds, and also clouds of angels as well, — 
the heavenly bodies announcing the presence oi 
their Maker in their midst by a universal eclypse of 
sun, moon and stars, which will be visible to all the 
world; but during the confusion occasioned thereby 
among the peoples of the earth, believers will ascena 
with the rapidity of the lightning flash and disappear 
from the sight of loved ones, left to their sins and 
the dominion of Satan on the earth. ' ' Then shall two 
be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other 
left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the 

[146] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

one shall be taken and the other left." Math. 24:40-41. 
Earth dwellers will hear the sound of angel trumpets 
and in the shadow of the awful eclypse of all nature, 
will think that it is unusually heavy thunder. The 
withdrawal of the Holy Spirit, with the Church, from 
the earth, will leave earth 's countless hosts of darkness 
under the personal and visible dominion of Satan and 
the knowledge of God will perish from the earth, and 
its multitudes will be incapable of entertaining divine 
impressions. Satan will be driven out of heaven into 
the earth. The first time that Satan was driven from 
the presence of God he was cast out of the mountain of 
God and took up his residence in the air, and became 
the "Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that 
now worketh in the children of disobedience," (Eph. 
2 :2) — this occurrence being described by the prophet 
in the following language : " By the multitude of thy 
merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with 
violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore will I cast 
thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I 
will destroy thee, covering cherub, from the midst 
of the stones of fire." Ezek. 28:16. 

The speaker who addressed Satan in the above 
language was Jesus, who meets him again in the 
heavens and casts him out of them into the earth. 
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in 
them (glorified hosts of God). Woe to the inhabiters 
of the earth and the sea ! for the Devil is come down 
unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that 
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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

he hath but a short time." Rev. 12 :12. His dominion 
will be brief on the earth, but his coming into the 
earth will inaugurate the period of tribulation. ' ' For 
then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since 
the beginning of the world to this time (when Satan 
is cast into the earth), no, nor ever shall be." Math. 
24:21. This will be a time of unprecedented trouble 
on the earth, tho Satan, knowing that his reign here 
will be short, will seek to defeat Jesus, by imitating as 
nearly as it will be possible for him to do it, the time 
of universal peace and righteousness and security tha 1 : 
Jesus will introduce, when He decends from the 
heavens to the earth at the close of the tribulation 
period. Hence Satan will raise up a prince from 
among the Romans, who was foreshadowed by Titus, 
the destroyer of Jerusalem the Anti-christ and who 
will himself be a Ceasar; and the Imperial empire of 
Rome will be restored and it will thru its ruler, the 
Anti-Christ, control all the nations and kingdoms of 
the earth for three and a half years, or the last half of 
the seventieth week of Daniel. "Seventy weeks are 
determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to 
finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, 
and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring 
in everlasting righteousness ; and to seal up the vision 
and the prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. ? ' 
Dan. 9 :24. The first part of Anti-Christ reign will be 
characterized by peace and great prosperity. He will 
be an actual human being, incarnated by Satan. This 

[148] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

was what Satan meant when he told Jesus that if He 
would worship him (the Devil), he would give him all 
the kingdoms of the world which will be consolidated 
as the "beast" under the rule of Anti-Christ. "And 
I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up 
out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and 
upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads thb 
names of blasphemy." Rev. 13:1. The incarnated 
Christ is to be imitated by Satan, who will possess thw 
elements and attributes of the Roman Caesar so com- 
pletely, as to be incarnated in him. This last and final 
Caesar will rule over the nations by virtue of the auth- 
ority and power that Satan gives to him. In a time of 
trouble Anti-Christ will receive a mortal wound, but he 
is miraculously healed and the fact makes a sensational 
impression upon his subjects who advertise it from one 
end of the world to the other, ' ' and all the world won- 
dered after the beast." I wonder if that wound will 
not be self-inflicted by Satan 's direction ? After occu- 
pying the body of the last of the Caesars will Satan be 
deceived by his own wicked imagination into the opin- 
ion that he is then sufficiently human to die and will 
he, therefore, attempt suicide or will he bewitch some 
valiant soldier and induce him to strike the fatal blow 
against Anti-Christ, while he is under the enchantment 
of the spell? Death to Satan, in the physical sense, 
would mean annihilation and he surely knows it. I 
verily believe that the metempsychosis of Satan into 
soul and body of the "beast" Caesar, and correspond- 

[149] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

ing metastasis of the human elements of Caesar into 
satanic genius, will fail to adhere in harmonious com- 
bination; hence Satan will find it difficult to act and 
reason and think as the supreme Devil, at all times, 
while he is dwelling in the human being and having a 
human form. There will be two natures and two 
beings, in one form, but the incarnation will be in- 
complete in the sense of perpetual union; therefore 
Satan will find himself thinking thru the human 
mind and then, when the mental maze is cleared he 
will think thru his own mind and indulge his own 
thoughts without being influenced by the brain of the 
man that he will occupy and fill during the time of 
his infernal incarnation. But he must have forgotten 
that as a devil he could not die nor escape the ' ' judg- 
ment of the Lamb." Caesar will have physical im- 
mortality so long as the Devil dwells personally in 
him, because he will be a satanized human and a 
humanized Devil. Failing to take his own life or 
destroy the human form thru which he works, Satan 
will give great power and honor to the Anti-Christ 
and the nations of the earth will give him hero-wor- 
ship, unconsciously worshipping the Devil without 
knowing it. He will be a great orator, an eloquent 
blasphemer, whose sublime rhetoric and sparkling 
diction will thrill and captivate the souls of men, and 
his elegant periods ending in a threatening challenge, 
thrown into the face of God in heaven, will be en- 
cored thruout the world. He will be a military char- 

[150] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

acter and a mighty man with the sword. He will 
make war on the saints, remnants of Jacob, and he 
will overcome them and force them into a slavish 
captivity. And the spell of his enchantment will 
hold the nations in line with his program, and com- 
pel their faithful obedience to him as their worshipful 
master. "And it was given unto him to make war 
with the saints, and to overcome them: and power 
was given him over all kindred and tongues and na- 
tions. And all that dwell upon the earth shall wor- 
ship him, whose names are not written in the book of 
life (but there will be as many as a hundred and 
forty-four thousand such people, elect Jews on the 
earth), of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world." Eev. 13:8. Anti-Christ will also blaspheme 
the tabernacle of God, which will be located in the 
heavens with "the Lamb." He causes an image to be 
made to the beast as men of old were required to do 
homage to the Roman Emperor. 

But "he (Anti-Christ) that leadeth into captivity, 
shall go into captivity. ' ' Jacob 's trouble will soon be 
ended and Israel restored to their beloved Jerusalem. 
A great spiritual change has taken place in the hearts 
of elect Jews. In the rapturous joy of salvation, they 
forget their miseries and ignore the galling chains of 
an unjust and inhuman slavery that Anti-Christ im- 
posed upon them ; and facing toward the eastern hills 
of David's kingdom-domain that are encrimsojned 
with the dawn of eternal day, as it brightens in the 

[151] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

nearer approach of the "sun of righteousness" com- 
ing to the ' ' judgment of the nations, ' ' they suddenly 
lift up their voices in happy song, in "honor of Moses 
and the Lamb." And as the worshipful libation of 
music pours forth in rhythmic cadence and melodious 
crescendo, echoing and re-echoing among Judean hills, 
they are startled into the ecstacy of the full realization 
of Messianic hope, and as the words of song die on 
their lips, a hundred and forty-four thousand tongues 
shout the triumphs of Jesus in anti-Christian airs and 
proclaim Jesus their King. The earth trembles and 
the little hills seem to move to and fro, the morning 
light paints forest and vale and glen with acres of 
diamonds and fields of gleaming pearl; now the 
morning light has given way before the shimmering 
billows of noonday 's effulgent presence, and Jesus has 
descended upon Zion's hill and the "kingdoms of 
this world have become the kingdoms of God and His 
Christ." Zechariah says: "And His feet shall stand 
in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before 
Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall 
cleave in the midst thereof toward the east, and toward 
the west, and there shall be a very great valley; ana 
half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, 
and half of it toward the south. ' ' Zech. 14 :4. Isaiah 
mentions the same circumstance, but in a slightly dif- 
ferent form, viz ; " The voice of him that crieth in the 
wilderness (John the Baptist), prepare ye the way 
of the Lord, make straight in the desert (Churchless 

[152] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

age of tribulation that has existed three and a half 
years), a highway for our God. Every valley shall be 
exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made 
low : and the crooked shall be made straight, and the 
rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall 
be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together : for the 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isa. 40 :3-5. This 
will be the moment when the appearance of Jesus 
will be universally visible to all the world and the 
eternities. The descent of Jesus to the mount of 
Olives will take place during the song of converted 
Israelites, the hundred and forty-four thousand sons 
of Jacob who have endured the terrible persecution 
of Anti-Christ and lived thru the tribulation period. 
Just before its close, the Holy Spirit, returned to the 
earth in His mysterious, dynamic power, and worked 
the spiritual change of regeneration in their hearts. 
"And He shall sit (Meaning Jesus in the heavens, who 
is personally represented by the Holy Spirit, His 
Paraclete), as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He 
shall purify the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold 
and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offer- 
ing in righteousness." Mai. 3:3. 

"While celebrating the carnival of spiritual joy 
with the melody of song, Jesus will descend to the 
earth and take His appointed place as King of Israel, 
on Zion's hill. He will meet Satan face to face again 
and this time Jesus will authorize an angel to arrest 
him, binding him with chains, — and to then shut him 

[153] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

up in the bottomless pit. "And I saw an angel come 
down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless 
pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold 
on the Dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, 
and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And 
cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and 
set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations 
no more until the thousand years should be fulfilled: 
after that he must be loosed a little season." Rev. 
20 :l-3. But the first thing that will take place upon 
the arrival of Jesus in the earth, will be the judgment 
of the nations and the converted Jews (sheep) will be 
separated from the anti-Christian hosts (Goat nations) , 
then the angels will be permitted to wreak vengeance 
upon them, "and they will gather them in bundles," 
(slaying them in heaps) , thus severing ' ' them from the 
just," (Jews — sheep nations)," And shall cast them 
into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and 
gnashing of teeth." Math. 13:49-50. Immediately 
following the cremation of the wicked dead, the world 
will be renovated by fire. "But the heavens and the 
earth which are now, by the same word are kept in 
store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment 
and perdition of ungodly men." II Pet. 3:7. The 
thirteenth verse makes the matter a little plainer, viz ; 
"Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for a 
new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth right- 
eousness." With the destruction of Anti-Christ and 
his hosts, and the binding of Satan, He will accom- 

[154] 



THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST 

plish the literal fulfillment of Malachi's prophecy 
about that specific work of Messiah, viz ; And ye shall 
tread down the wicked ; for they shall be ashes under 
the souls of your feet in the day that I shall do this, 
saith the Lord of hosts. Jesus is reigning King in 
Zion. The kingdom of hell has passed from the earth 
domain and the scepter of satanic power is broken 
forever. The world shines resplendent in the renewed 
glory of a once lost Eden, but now fully restored to 
the world. Its subjects are not burdened with carnal 
natures, but they occupy immortalized bodies, from 
which every element of sin has been removed and they 
are deathless, tireless, more glorious than angels, and 
each one of them resembles Jesus their King. 



[155] 



CHAPTER VIII 

Resurrection of the Dead 

The doctrine of resurrection is the very capstone, 
of gospel truth. It is the diamond that out-shines all 
other gems that adorn the Savior's crown. Nature 
furnishes abundant testimony to the uprising of all 
the dead, as can be seen through analogy. Martin 
Luther says, "Our Lord has written his promise not 
in books alone, but in every leaf of Spring-time/' 
Day dies into night and is buried everywhere in dark- 
ness. The glory of the world is obscured in the shadow 
of death. Its entire substance is tarnished with black- 
ness. Things become sordid, silent, stupid. Business 
ceases and occupations rest. And so over the loss of 
night there is mourning. But the day-spring bursts 
its bands of mist, casts its roseate blush of dawn o'er 
the shadow-haunted earth, crimsoning forest and glen, 
making the dew drops pendant on leaf of tree, flower- 
ets and shrub, sparkle as myriads of diamonds in the 
morning light. Thus Phoebus, clad in his lustrous 
robe of day takes his throne. Shadows flee from his 
presence and the stars, abashed at their insignificance, 
hide their faces in the hem of his gorgeous garment. 
All is life. Everything is awake. The world is aglow 
with industry and business activity. Nature has lifted 

[156] 



RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

the veil of mourning from her face and opening the 
sepulchre of her death steps forth refreshed, strength- 
ened and resplendent in her effulgent beauty. The 
great Spurgeon says, "The seasons are four evange- 
lists having their testimony to utter to us. ' ' Summer 
preaches to us of God's goodness, of the richness of 
his bounty, of that lavish munificence with which Ht 
is pleased to supply the earth, not simply with food for 
man, but with delights for both eye and ear in the 
beauteous landscape, the melodies of birds and the 
flowers of various hue. The still small voice of Au- 
tumn that bears the wheatsheaf whispers to us in the 
rustling sear leaf and the falling acorn. He bids us 
prepare to die. ' ' All of us, ' ' says he ' ' are like flowers 
that fade or the grass that now is and tomorrow is 
cast into the oven." Winter, snow-crowned and clad 
in his brilliant mantle of frost, thunders a most solemn 
sermon on the terrors of God's vengeance. He tries 
to make us see how soon he can strip the earth of all 
its pleasantries and robe it in storm, when He shall 
come to judge it in righteousness. Then comes Spring, 
the beautiful maid of the seasons, tripping o'er the 
daisies, preaching to us in the opening bud and the 
fragrance of the full-blown flower, fields of growing 
grain, and verdant forest, a glorious sermon on the 
resurrection. She says: "Man shall live again tho he 
die." As the seed when sown germinates and springs 
forth in the tender plant, so shall man come forth from 
the dust of the earth and enter upon an eternal heri- 

[157] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

tage and never-changing state of weal or woe. Death 
to the Christian is a blessing in disguise. It is a 
Jacob's ladder upon which we climb up to our Fath- 
er's throne; hence, amidst the dissolution of nature 
we can with rapture sing : ' * Believing in the midst of 
our afflictions that death is a beginning, not an end, 
we cry to them, and send farewells, that better might 
be called predictions, being foreshadowings of the 
future thrown into the vast unknown. ' ' Now may the 
Holy Spirit lead us into a clear knowledge of the 
glorious tho solemn subject, that writer and reader 
may be profited together and strengthened in the faith 
and fellowship of the gospel. 

The Real Identity op the Body 

The real identity of the body. The Apostle useb 
a figure of a seed, a tarnished grain of wheat being 
deposited in the ground it dies, all the farinaceous part 
of it decays and is reduced to a peculiar fine soil, into 
which the life-germ finds refuge and upon which it 
feeds. The grain itself dies with the exception of a 
particle too small to be visible to the natural eye. In 
a short time we see a delicate blade peeping through 
the clods. It grows until the full fruition appears. 
Here you have a stalk bearing many grains of wheat. 
A short time ago you held in your hand a rusty grain 
small and shriveled but which when planted produced 
this wonderful harvest. You did not sow that beauti- 

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RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

ful waving grain that yields so gracefully to every 
gentle zepher that kisses her golden cheek. You sowed 
that which has borne it. ' ' Thou sowest not that body 
that shall be but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, 
or of some other grain : But God giveth it a body as it 
hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.'' 
Thus God in a mysterious way preserves the seed 
sown and causing it to germinate gives it a manifold 
reproduction, and at the same time securing its real 
identity. We have an illustration of God's method 
of raising the dead in this inspired harvest scene. The 
body is sown in corruption. What is more repugnant, 
lothsome and nauseating than a dead body? What 
sickening results follow in the wake of Death! His 
cythe-stroke breeds infection, pollution and carnage. 
An Upas shadow gathers in dismal darkness about 
his bloodstained blade. Behold ! a picture of life and 
death as I shall endeavor to paint it on the ethereal 
canvas of your imagination. There she sits solitary in 
the lime-light of her own reflected beauty. 

She is beauty's noblest Queen. She is the ad- 
mired of men and the despair of angelic women. The 
fragrance of the violets is in her breath. Her eyes 
sparkle as tho Arcturus and his brilliant sons had 
fallen from their thrones and had lost their way in 
their liquid brown depths. The daintiest colorings ot 
the rose blushes crimson in her cheeks. Her teeth 
whiter than pearls glisten, as though they were pol- 
ished in pure extract of lilies. Nothing about her re- 
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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

minds one of death. In our admiration we think of 
imperishable angels or some wandering spirit that has 
never been cloyed by earth. But wait a moment. See 
that wriggling serpent cling to her cheek? There is 
another and another and another. How pale ! Oh she 
faints : Help ! Help ! Where are her attendants ? Send 
for Antony ! Too late ! The far-famed beauty Cleopatra 
is dead ! The bejeweled hand is cold and stiff. An 
idiotic stare o'er-spreads her countenance. The lips 
part in stupid silence and the hands lie limp and mo- 
tionless, across her pulseless breast. Ah, her beauty 
is departed and her glory must be interred with her 
bones. This form once so lovely is now food for 
worms. She is sown in corruption. There she lies after 
the passage of twenty centuries. That grinning skele- 
ton is all that remains of the world 's renowned beauty. 
What body will she have? who is able to answer? 
"God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him." "To 
every seed his own body." Here we let the curtain 
fall. Beyond this we have no desire to penetrate the 
veil. Hence brethren we are a handful of seed or a 
measure of corn or wheat. Our sowing in the ground 
is soon to come. What form will this seed have? 
None of you can tell. But your bodies evidently have 
each their own life germ. The flowers of the meadows 
have their own peculiar root and seed-germ. Thus 
we have preserved to us variety in the vegetable king- 
dom. So shall it be in the resurrection. Each physi- 
cal body will come forth from the death shades, bear- 

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RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

ing fruit consonant to its seed nature. God will give 
us bodies as it shall please Him, "to every one of us 
his own body." Not some other man's body. But the 
very one in which we live and move and have our resi- 
dence. The same body. Thank God ! I believe that 
every atom of this body in which I live today, will be 
preserved in that body that God shall give me, when 
the trumpet sounds and Jesus shall come to be " glori- 
fied in his saints." Not in the same sense however 
that the identical particles spring up to make a blade 
and the full corn in the ear. Yet they shall be 
identical in the sense that they spring from this body, 
and shall be the true result and development of poor 
flesh and blood. I am aware that there are many ob- 
jections offered to this doctrine. But this is of small 
moment to me. So long as I can have a "thus sayeth 
the Lord" for my faith and opinions I feel secure 
and am content to advocate them and leave results 
with God. 

The Doctrine op the Resurrection is Purely a 
Doctrine of Revelation 

Immortality is not distinctively a doctrine of 
revelation, I mean in the sense that the resurrection is, 
or of regeneration or redemption, or any other card- 
inal doctrine of revelation ; not that immortality is not 
a doctrine of Christianity and identified with super- 
natural revelation, but I mean that it is different from 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

resurrection in the method that is employed for its 
demonstration, in that, through all the ages, men in 
every condition of life, from the lowest state of barbar- 
ity to the highest plane of culture and civilization, 
have naturally entertained a belief in immortality. 
And it has been accomodated to the system of revela- 
tion having been incorporated with the doctrines of 
Christianity. It was therefore not necessary to make 
a special revelation regarding the doctrine of immort- 
ality, because it was almost universally accepted in all 
ages, and by all people, tho its relation to the revela- 
tion of Bible doctrine has brought it into clearer light 
and given it an explanation, confirming men in the be- 
lief of it, the writers of the scriptures using it by 
means of correlation in the system of Christian doc- 
trine, as an incidental base for the doctrine of the 
resurrection and the enlargement and elucidation of 
the Christian hope. Prior to the development of the 
divine revelation of God, contained in the holy scrip- 
tures, the hope of immortality was not thoroughly 
understood, being eclypsed by pagan superstitious 
ideals, and in the absence of direct revelation, setting 
forth the true ideal of hope for a future emancipation 
of the mind from the darkness of superstition and un- 
certainty regarding a future state of happiness that 
the idea of immortality always had in purview, the 
hope of immortality was therefore, often obscured, fal- 
ing into complete collapse, being substituted in the 
heart of an inquirer about future things by a spirit of 

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RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

despair and hopeless anxiety. Thus we hear the Pat- 
riarch Job crying, " If a man die shall he live again ¥ ' ' 
Reasoning with his unbelief, or doubts, Job appeals to 
nature, and says to his disquieted heart : ' ' For there is 
hope of a tree if it be cut down, that it will sprout 
again, and that the tender branch thereof will not 
cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, 
and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet through 
the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs 
like a plant. But man dieth and wasteth away; yea 
man giveth up the ghost and where is he?" The 
same cry has been the burden of the human heart in 
all ages. It has been voiced to the heavens in whis- 
pered accents and in thunder tones. Man has looked 
up into the skies and thought to read his destiny in 
the stars. Shrouded in his own shadows, failing to 
understand his own personality, the unguided light 
of consciousness within him, nickering uncertainly 
and casting its fitful flashes across the horizon of his 
soul, served only to intensify the deepening shadows of 
his hopelessness; therefore he investigated nature to 
the fullest extent of his limited ability in an effort to 
build up the doctrine of immortality from analogy. He 
has observed the seasons and tried to gather hope on 
that field. And as a last resort he has turned his eye 
within, and out of the deep longings of the human 
soul, he has sought to construct an argument that 
would satisfy reason, and silence the instinctive fear 
of annihilation. But he got no further in a satisfac- 
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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

tory solution of the matter than did the Patriarch 
Job in the olden times. The most erudite and cul- 
tured, the most advanced thinkers and philosophers of 
antiquity, never attained to a true knowledge of 
immortality; nor devised a doctrine of the resurrec 
tion. They never so much as received a hint of it, to 
say nothing of teaching it in- any of their philosophies. 
It remained for God to give a distinct revelation of the 
doctrine of resurrection, and thereby enlarge the nat- 
ural hope of immortality, and form a true basis for 
the "blessed immortality of the gospel" that fills the 
heart of all believers with the assurance of eternal 
life, bringing them into the experience of a resurrec- 
tion hope. It would be unjust to the memory of Job, 
and a blasphemous reflection upon the great Book that 
bears his name, the oldest volume of our scriptures, 
w T ere I to leave this part of the subject without ex- 
plaining to my readers the fact that Job, after all of 
his afflictions, calamities and great misfortunes was 
given a special revelation of the redemptive work of 
Jesus, so that in the nineteenth chapter of his book, 
we hear him exclaiming: "For I know that my re- 
deemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter da,> 
upon the earth : And tho after my skin worms destroy 
this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom 1 
shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and 
not another; tho my reins be consumed within me." 
It is clear from the above words that Job accepted the 
doctrine of the resurrection as fundamental and neces- 

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RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

sary to the development of a Christian hope, and es- 
sential to the existence of Christianity itself. Greek 
Philosophers in Athens hissed the doctrine when it was 
preached by Paul on Mars Hill. They called him a 
"babbler" or a vain person teaching an intellectual 
vagary that had no basis in natural religion. They 
unwittingly complimented the doctrine of resurrection 
and unconsciously accepted Paul's position and by 
rejecting it as a doctrine of nature, classed it abovt 
nature and a natural religion, acknowledging that it 
was a new doctrine and belonged distinctively to the 
Christian revelation. So essential to the integrity of 
the doctrine of Christianity is the doctrine of resur- 
rection, that Christianity must stand or fall with it. 
And it is a pivotal fact upon which depend all the 
other doctrines of redemption. 

But our Lord has not written the promise of re- 
surrection in books alone, but in every leaf and bud 
and flowering shrub of nature, but without a direct 
revelation man could not understand the benevolent 
instructions of nature. Hence nature itself must 
needs be explained, and it required a revelation from 
God, the Maker of nature, to make it known. God 
has filled all nature with continual emblems of this 
doctrine. He has given a great number of illustrations 
in the arrangements of nature and providence. What 
is night but the death of day? "What is morning but 
its resurrection from the shades of night? Winter is 
the death of the year. The seared brown leaf, the 

[165] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

bare forest and the faded grass of the field are em- 
blems of death. But spring with its unfolding bud, 
its fragrant flowering shrub and sunny skies, southern 
breezes and awakening nature, is a beautiful illustra- 
tion of the resurrection. 

Anticipate the hour, 
When, at the archangel's voice, the slumbering dust 
Shall wake, nor earth, nor sea, withhold her dead; 
When starting at the crash of bursting bombs, 
Of mausoleums rent, and pyramids 
Heaved from their base, thy tyrant of the grave, 
Propp 'd on his broken sceptre, while the crown 
Falls from his head, beholds his prison-house 
Emptied of habitants; beholds 
Mortal, in immortality absorb 'd, 
Corruptible in incorruption lost. 

It is objected sometimes that men's bodies are 
scattered over the fields to fertilize the soil. Hence 
atoms that compose them are caught up in plant life 
and are transferred to the bodies of men and animals. 
If so, how can they be tracked? I will answer that 
question by asking one. Granting that God made nat- 
ure, is it not easier for him to preserve all the atoms 
of our physical bodies, than it was originally for him 
to make the first atom from nothing? So far as that 
is concerned it is not absolutely necessary for him to 
preserve every particle of the human structure, in 
order to accomplish the full purpose of a literal resur- 
rection, a sufficient number of atoms, particles and 
material elements to secure the identity of the sown 
body, being all that is demanded by the scriptures. 

[166] 



RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

"Thou so west not that body that shall be, but bare 
grain it may chance of wheat or of some other grain. ' ' 
Nevertheless I believe that every part of the human 
structure will be raised from the dust. 

"Like as the naming comet doubles wide 
Heaven's mighty cape; and then revisits earth, 
From the long travel of a thousand years; 
Thus at the destined period shall return 
He, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze; 
And with Him all our triumph o'er the tomb." 

WyclinVs body was burned to ashes, and the 
ashes scattered upon the bosom of the river. It is 
difficult for an objector to understand how the atoms 
composing his body, after they had been carried by 
the river into the sea, and scattered, perhaps to every 
known shore, could be re-gathered and re-assembled 
into a glorious body such as the Bible describes. Did 
any of these changes haj>pen to the reformer's body 
irrespectively of those natural laws which God has 
ordained? It is a well known chemical law, that by 
the use of proper agencies bodies that have been 
dissolved can be re-assembled and restored to their 
pristine state. One illustration will suffice: A silver 
vase or any silver vessel can be dissolved in aqua- 
fortis and restored by an addition of water to the 
chemical. Then why cannot Jehovah without violating 
the law of nature or even trespassing the principle of 
chemical affinity, restore a dissolved human body to 
its original form. Granting that God made the human 
body from the dust of the earth, it appears to me to 

[167] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

be a less difficult task for God to preserve the atoms 
that compose the body, and re-assemble them into a 
resurrected body. Peter Martyrs, a celebrated re- 
former, died a few years before Queen Mary's reign. 
His enemies being thwarted in an attempt to secure 
possession of his body, were angered so that they took 
the bones of his wife and buried them in a dunghill. 
During the reign of Elizabeth her friends fearing 
that her mortal remains would be exposed to new 
indignities took it from its contemptuous hiding place 
and burned it. It was then mixed with the ashes of a 
romish saint. They said, "now these romanists will 
never defile her ashes because they will be afraid of 
desecrating the relics of their saint." Now how can 
the two be divided? Just as easily as wheat can be 
separated from barley. Each body possesses its own 
distinctive seed-germ. All flesh is not the same kind 
and no two human bodies precisely alike. 

The blessed in the new covenant 
Shall rise up quickened, each one from 

his grave, 
Wearing again the garments of flesh, 
Ministers and messengers of life eternal. 

A Glorious Transformation 

The body is mortal. Always subject to decay. 
We live in a poor uncomfortable tent. The canvas 
is continually being rent, the cords loosed and the 
stakes removed. We suffer in mind and body, burn- 
ing pains rack the nerves. We languish on beds 

[168] 



RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

of affliction. Some are victims of lingering diseases. 
Some suddenly and without the least warning cease 
to breathe and we follow them mournfully to their 
last resting place in the solemn city of the dead, the 
certain destination of us all. God has so willed it that 
each must return to his or her native dust. But not 
so with the resurrection body. Spurgeon says, "there 
shall not be a bone nor a piece of a bone of any one 
of Christ's people left in the charnel house at the 
last. Death shall not have a solitary trophy to show : 
His prison-house shall be utterly rifled of all the spoil 
which he has gathered from our humanity. The 
resurrection body shall be deathless. No solemn 
hearse, with its nodding black plumes, in heaven. The 
New Jerusalem is one city in God's vast universe 
that has no graveyards. Death with his grinning 
skull and hideous crossbones will never be seen on 
her golden streets. Her inhabitants are raised in- 
corruptible. Age on age shall roll into immeasurable 
eternity, but no sign of decay will be permitted to mar 
the glory of our lustrous bodies. We shall have 
eternal youth. If DeLeon, the Spanish explorer, who 
came to America in search of the perpetual fountain 
of youth, reaches that fair clime he shall not be 
turned away a disappointed, broken-hearted man. 
His hopes shall dwell in unfading youth and vigor 
forever. 

"That great mysterious Deity 
We soon with open face shall see; 
The beatific sight 

[169] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

Shall fill the heavenly courts with 

praise, 
And wide diffuse the golden blaze 
Of everlasting light." 

Thank God! our hopes, thoughts and longing 
after immortality are not acids or elements of clay, 
to be dissolved in the moment of death and pass like 
the expiring taper, into the darkness of unconscious 
nonentity, but a great change will take place with 
respect to the nature and beauty of our bodies. Here 
are we, like rusty iron or flowers that fade, or like the 
crawling worm. We are continually subject to change. 
I use the illustration employed by all preachers when 
discussing this subject. See there the wriggling 
caterpillar? There is nothing comely about him that 
"we should desire him." But wait a few weeks. He 
is now entering the chrysalis state. He will soon burst 
the bonds of death and throwing aside his winding 
sheet, will come forth equipped with glittering wings. 
Having arrived at a full state of perfection he shines 
with rainbow splendor, reflecting the image of the 
creature in sunbeam. So shall we, after passing thro 
our wormwood state here, to our chrysalis state in the 
grave, burst our coffins and mount aloft more glorious 
than the angels. 

"To will is ours, but not to execute. 
We map our future like some unknown coast, 
And say, Here is a harbor, there a rock. 
The one we will attain, the other shun! 
And we do neither! Some chance gale springs up, 
And bears us far o'er some unfathomed sea. 

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RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

Our efforts all are vain; at length we yield 

To winds and waves that laugh at man's control. 

. . . Upon each beckoning scheme 
No sooner do we fix our hope, than still 
Time bears us on, leaving each still undone, 
Adjourned forever!" 

We shall be changed also in power. "It is sown 
in weakness, it is raised in power." We are puny 
things here. Our strength fails with the passing of a 
few hours. Our labors wear us out, and a few more 
days and all of us, like burned out candles, will be 
extinguished in the darkness of the tomb. But we 
shall be raised in power. Martin Luther thought 
that the resurrected saint, if he chose to do it, would 
be strong enough to shake the world. Some modern 
writers borrowing their ideas from Milton, when he 
speaks of the battles of the angels, where they plucked 
up mountains with their shaggy loads and hurled 
them at the fallen spirits, have taught that we shall 
be clothed with gigantic force. Whether we go the 
length of the poet or not, it is sufficient for us to 
know, that we will possess almost infinite strength, 
because we shall be like Him "for we shall see Him 
as He is." 

"To think, when heaven and earth are 
fled, 
And times and seasons o'er, 
When all that can be shall be dead, 

That I shall die no more; 
Oh! where will then my portion be, 
Where shall I spend eternity?" 

[171] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 



Distinct Personality 



If you sow barley you will reap barley. Neither 
death nor resurrection makes any change in the char- 
acters of men. The mortal lineaments will be engraven 
on the inner man, which every day of an unconverted 
life makes more indelible and deeper ; they will retain 
the very impress they have gotten — unaltered and un- 
effaced by the transition from our present to our 
future state of existence. There will be a dissolution, 
then a reconstruction of the body from the sepulchral 
dust, into which it had mouldered. But there will be 
neither a dissolution nor a renovation of the spirit 
which, indestructible both in character and essence, 
will retain its identity on the midway passage be- 
tween this world and the next; so that at the time 
of quitting this earthly tenement, we may say that if 
unjust now, it will be unjust still ; if filthy now it will 
be filthy still; if holy now, it will be holy still. We 
all return to our former state after going out of sight, 
the character remaining fixed and unchanged be- 
tween our dissolution and the day of our account, — 
that terrible day of horrors and terrors to many of 
Adam's unfortunate race — that day of universal 
triumph for the blood-washed hosts of redemption, 
that day that shall ring the death knell of time, 
and usher us, prepared or unprepared, into the bosom 
of eternity, — that day that God shall come forth 
from the pavilion of mercy and ascending the throne 

[172] 



RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

of justice take account of all His creatures, — that 
day of judgment, 

"The judgment! the thrones are all set, 
Where the Lamb and the white-vested elders are 

met! 
All flesh is at once in the sight of the Lord 
And the doom of Eternity hangs on His word." 



[173] 



CHAPTER IX 

The Millenium 

"I know that He whose years can ne'er decay 
Will from the grave redeem my sleeping clay, 
When the last rolling sun shall leave the skies. 
He will survive, and o'er the dust arise: 
Then shall this mangled skin new form assume, 
This flesh shall flourish in immortal bloom: 
My raptured eyes the judging God shall see, 
Estranged no more, but friendly then to me. 
How does the lofty hope my soul inspire! 
I burn, I faint with vehement desire." 

Thus, Thomas Scott beautifully paraphrases the 
language of Job, who mentions the Messianic Age in 
the book that bears his name. "For I know that my 
Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter 
day upon the earth. ' ' And tho the hope of the ' ' latter 
day," : — the time of universal peace, when wars will 
cease, and swords be turned into plow shares, and 
spears into pruning hooks, is specially revealed in the 
scriptures and accorded the distinction of being 
devised and made known thru the superhuman in- 
spiration of the Holy Spirit, it is nevertheless the 
hope of nations today, and has been the desire of na- 
tions of past ages; and tho they have crumbled into 
dust, their records bear testimony to the fact that they 
too looked for an age when righteousness would rule 
supreme, death pass from the experiences of men and 

[174] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

universal peace and. immortal life become the unchang- 
ing and fadeless destiny of all races and all peoples 
in the world. The heart of the world is more deeply 
perplexed, confused and terribly shaken by grief and 
despair, at the present time, than ever before in its 
history. Men are serious, their spirits perturbed, ap- 
prehensive and in feverish haste, they are endeavoring 
to prepare to meet those things that are coming upon 
them, but they do not understand the signs of the 
times. The world is in the grip of the most destruc- 
tive war of all the ages. Those nations that are not 
directly involved in the awful cataclysm, are feeling 
its horrible results and neutrals tremble with alarm 
and ever-increasing concern, as they see the strong 
nations, like a whirling maelstrom of blood and in- 
human carnage with irresistible influence and over- 
whelming power, drawing the weaker and more help- 
less countries into its general ruin. Men are thinking 
of the past, and are trying to find some connecting 
link between world conditions of the present and 
world affairs in the long ago, in the hope of getting 
light upon the troubled state of things today: and 
many are succeeding, but their investigations open 
new fields for thought and imaginative genius to ex- 
plore, and the further processes of mental search lead 
on to deeper and more unsatisfactory developments. 
The knowledge that we acquire thru special investiga- 
tion of world-wide conditions of society, religion and 
civilization, is confusing to the mind, and many turn 

[175] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

away from the seemingly hopeless task of finding a 
correct solution, and refuse to see anything beyond 
the bedlam of confusion and turmoil and the aceldama 
of blood and carnage that holds Europe in its savage 
grip, and banishes peace to the furthest limits of the 
world. But countless numbers are applying to the 
very fountain of all wisdom and knowledge, and from 
which in the past they had strayed, viz; the Bible; 
and they are eagerly devouring the truths contained in 
its sacred pages, and their search for light and soul- 
peace is being strangely rewarded. They find hope, 
peace and assurance of an age of peace, — a golden 
age, and they see beyond the smoke-begrimed horizon 
of European battlefields the glintings of the world's 
sabbath, as it descends upon a sin-cursed and horror- 
struck world from the eternal and glory crowned hills 
of Zion. The mysticism of the age is clearing away, 
and men are coming to their senses. They are taking 
correct bearings, and they realize that the national 
destiny of all nations is uncertain, and where and 
when and how it will all end is a problem that none 
can satisfactorily solve. A thinking person cannot 
find any comfort or gratification in a vision of the 
world, waxing as it is, more and more wickedly, unless 
such an one is willing to accept the explanation of all 
these antagonistic evils given in the word of God, and 
abide the decisions of the Almighty, and rest in hope 
of the future day of glory and emancipation for the 
world and the human race. It must be admitted that 

[176] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

the times are portentous, and strange side-lights of 
history, gleaming athwart the pathway of men as the 
flickering light of the glow worm crushed by the 
density of the drifting fog, are suddenly extinguished, 
serving to increase the darkness that envelops the 
world, and to obscure the waymarks of human pro- 
gress, leaving us to grope our way thru the murky 
gloom of the world's night, and to feel our way back 
thru a labyrinth of false and failing ideals, to the 
highway of truth and "the landmarks of the fathers," 
from whence we have unconsciously strayed. This is 
the age 's crisis. Sir Robert Peel spoke like a prophet 
of old, when, in 1855 he used the following language : 
' ' Every aspect of the present time viewed in the light 
of the past, warrants the belief that we are on the eve 
of a universal change." Certainly this is an age of 
the world when nations are trembling and convulsed. 
A mighty influence, uncanny in its impressions upon 
the hearts of men, is abroad, surging and heaving the 
world as with an earthquake. But the opinion of Dr. 
Tyng in this connection is very encouraging, viz; 
"while all human appearances indicate the approach 
of changes more important than any man has ever 
seen before, God 's Word lays before us just what that 
change is to be." 

"The world appears 
To toll the death-bell of its own 

decease : 
And by the voice of its elements 
To preach the general doom." 

[177] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

The world prospect is discouraging to those per- 
sons who are imbued with the idea of universal peace 
which they have confidently expected to be realized 
thru the mutual interchange of international court- 
esies and the recognition of brotherhood for all men. 
But great thinkers have been rudely awakened, thru 
the clash of empires, to the fact that pacifism is an 
Utopian dream, the realization of which must be 
placed in the far-future, if it is ever accomplished 
thru the harmonious adjustment of great world pow- 
ers, in fraternal relations with each other. The world 
is in a state of pandemonium. It is rent and torn by 
strife. Peace movements in the past have aborted 
and brought forth discord and death. During the 
previous century the seeds of international treachery 
was sown by designing leaders of different nations, in 
diplomatic councils, which have germinated and pro- 
duced a harvest of national hate, international dis- 
trust, political malice, commercial greed, assassination, 
anarchism, war and carnage. The peace of Utrecht 
is a waning memory and that memorable treaty of 
1713, giving one of the great World Powers naval and 
colonial supremacy, is regarded by warring nations as 
being merely, "a scrap of paper," which has proven 
to be the prolific source of the world's greatest war. 
Shall we ignore the words of Jesus in this connection, 
viz; "I came not to send peace on the earth, but a 
sword ? " It is clearly demonstrated, that human nat- 
ure, in this enlightened twentieth century, is as cruel, 
remorseless, grasping, self-centered and carnal, as it 

[178] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

has ever been in previous ages. It must therefore De 
changed — made anew, in a physical sense, before a 
period of universal and lasting peace can be estab- 
lished in the world. And the world also must be 
changed, because it was transformed, during the del- 
uge, to conform to the interests and conditions of 
human nature. It is consonant to all the demands of 
men, regardless of their different states of life and be- 
ing, here below. Universal peace is impossible under 
the present material conditions of the world. It is 
not a suitable place for the residence of perfect and 
glorified persons, hence Enoch and Elijah, — Moses, 
after his resurrection, and Jesus, with all those who 
were raised when He died on Calvary, left it. The 
poet, Tennyson, caught a vision of the future and ex- 
pressed his hope in the following lines : 

"Ring out old shapes of foul disease, 
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; 
Ring out the thousand wars of old, 
Ring in the thousand years of peace! 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand! 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be." 

Peter says: "Looking for and hasting unto the 
coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens bein^ 
on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat." 2 Pet. 3:12. Thus the world will 
be changed and renewed and refined by fire, before 
the period of universal peace is inaugurated. The 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

matter is explained in the thirteenth verse, viz ; " But 
according to His promise we look for a new heavens 
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. ' ' It 
will be a physical and visible change, not an intangible 
and spiritual one. Old things will pass away and all 
things will become new and Paradise will be re-estab- 
lished in the earth. Milton says : 

"The world shall burn and from her 
ashes spring 
New heaven and earth wherein the 

just shall dwell; 
And after all their tribulations long 
See golden days." 

James Montgomery dreamed of the day of Mes- 
sianic triumph and wrote : 

"If God hath made this world so 
fair, 
Where sin and death abound, 
How beautiful beyond compare 
Will Paradise be found.' ' 

Traces of the Messianic hope and a belief in the 
future millennial glory of the world is found in the 
literature of all past nations, but the origin of the doc- 
trine seems to have been lost in the remote depths of 
antiquity. Bishop Russell, of Scotland, who was him- 
self an Anti-Millenarian, says: "With respect to the 
Millennium it must be acknowledged that the doctrine 
concerning it stretches back into antiquity so remote 
and obscure, that it is impossible to fix its origin. 
The tradition that the earth, as well as the moral ana 

[180] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

religious state of its inhabitants were to undergo a 
great change at the end of the six-thousand years, has 
been detected in the writings of Pagans, Jews and 
Christians. It is found in the most ancient of those 
commentaries of the Old Testament, which we owe to 
the learning of the Rabbinical school; and although 
the arguments by which it is recommended to oui 
belief will not make a deep impression upon any in- 
telligent reader, this will nevertheless, leave no room 
for doubt that the notion of the millennium preceded 
by several centuries, the introduction of the Christian 
faith. "A learned Jewish Rabbi, Elias, who lived 
about two hundred years before Christ, taught that 
the world would be two-thousand years void of law, 
two-thousand years under law, and two-thousand years 
under Messiah. He limited the duration of the world 
to six-thousand years, and held that in the seventh 
millennary, "the earth would be renewed and the 
righteous dead raised ; that these should not again be 
turned to dust, and that the just then alive, should 
mount up with wings as eagles: so that, in that day, 
they would not fear tho the mountains be cast into 
the midst of the sea. ' ' Rabbi Elias evidently believed 
that the resurrection of the righteous dead preceded 
the Millennium. David Gregory, a learned mathema- 
tician of England, who died in 1710, when discussing 
the Millennium, said: "In the first verse of the first 
chapter of Genesis, the Hebrew letter Aleph, which 
in the Jewish arithmetic stands for a thousand, is six 
times found. From hence the ancient Cabalists con- 

[181] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

eluded that the world would last six-thousand years. 
Because God also was six days about the creation, 
and a thousand years with Him are but as one day; 
therefore after six days, that is, six- thousand years' 
duration of the world, there shall be a seventh day, 
or millennary sabbath of rest." This early belief of 
the Jews was found in the Sibylline Oracles, rare and 
ancient writings, that have come down to us in the 
form of Greek verses, comprising fourteen books in all. 
They were written by various authors, embracing 
Heathen, Jewish and Christian, and were written in 
different ages; some being written before Christ and 
some after His death and ascension. It is also found 
in the writings of Hesiod, and also those of Darius 
Hystaspes, the old king of the Medes, who probably 
derived it from the Magi. We find traces of it in 
Hermes Trismegistus, among the Egyptians. It was 
adopted by the early Christian fathers, Clemens, Tim- 
otheus and Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch. Theopom- 
pus, who lived 340 years before Christ, relates that the 
Persian Magi taught that the present state of things 
would continue six-thousand years, after which Hades 
or death would be destroyed and men would live hap- 
py. The Chaldees, according to Plutarch, believed 
in a struggle between good and evil for six-thousand 
years, "then Hades is to cease, and men are to be 
happy, neither wanting food nor making shade." 
Zoroaster taught the same. Joseph Mede remarks: 
"The divine institution of a sabbatical or seventh 
year's solemnity among the Jews has a plain typical 

[182] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

reference to the seventh chiliad, or millennary of the 
world, according to the well-known tradition among 
the Jewish Doctors, adopted by many in every age oi 
the Christian Church, that this world will attain to its 
limit at the end of six-thousand years." I quote the 
above statement from Mede simply to show that among 
the Jews the doctrine of the Millenium was commonly 
accepted by their scholars, and that many of the 
ceremonial services of the Jews indicated, typically, a 
sabbatical year for the world. But let it not be for- 
gotten, that the chronology of the world is inaccurate, 
because the Jewish calendar was changed by Caesar. 
Then the world has lost time since the creation, be- 
cause it was made to ' ' stand still, ' ' in order to enable 
Joshua to win the battle. 

The shadow was miraculously turned back fifteen 
degrees in the dial of Ahaz, to confirm Hezekiah in 
the promise that God made to restore him to health 
and add to his life fifteen years. Therefore it is clear 
to my mind, that the seventh year or millennial period, 
as indicated by the sabbath day and sabbatical year of 
Israel, is to be the last stage of existence for the mat- 
erial universe, — the last day, of all visible things, 
and when it has reached its limit, after its introduc- 
tion (and none but God can know when that will 
come), the world will pass away, and nature will 
cease to exist. Then we cannot know when the Millen- 
nium will come, because we cannot ascertain when 
Jesus will return to the world. Both events are sealed 
mysteries of God. And it is enough for us to know 

[183] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

that both are future, and that we should be true to 
Christ in all of our ways, and faithful in the dis- 
charge of all duties and obligations to our fellow mor- 
tals. Jesus is coming again to ' ' rule the nations with 
a rod of iron, ' ' but to establish the Kingdom of God in 
triumph and joy and great glory in the world. The 
subjects of that Kingdom, during His personal reign 
in the world, will be glorified and immortalized men 
and women, who have been redeemed from among the 
peoples of every race under the sun. Blessed con- 
summation of this weary and sorrowful world ! Let 
us give it welcome, and hail its approach, and wait its 
coming, more than they that watch for the morning. 
We weep over the wrecks of the world and lament its 
heart-rending tragedies ; our hearts melt with fervent 
sympathy for broken hearted parents whose children 
are swept from their fellowship and the bosom of the 
domestic paradise by an holocaust of sin ; our tears of 
bitterness fall on the irresponsive faces of our beloved 
dead, over suffering infancy and the unconscious clay 
of sweet innocents, over the untimely births that have 
never seen the light, or have just looked upon it and 
shut their eyes for a season, waiting for the glorious 
light of the resurrection morning. Our souls desire 
to see the King in His beauty. The voice of the 
Church calls for Jesus to return and all creatures long 
to be renewed. 

11 These eyes shall see them fall, 

Mountains and stars and skies; 
These eyes shall see them all 

[184] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

Out of their ashes rise; 
These lips His praises shall rehearse 
Whose nod restores the universe." 

Thus we understand the scriptures to teach, and 
thus do we believe. And so taught the eminent Steph- 
en Charnock, and also the brilliant Thomas Chalmers, 
who wrote, "The object of the administration we are 
under is to extirpate sin, but it is not to sweep away 
materialism. There will be a firm earth as we have at 
present, and a heaven stretched out over it as we have 
at present. It is not by the absence of these, but by 
the absence of sin, that the abodes of immortality will 
be characterized. It will be a Paradise of sense, but 
not of sensuality. It is then that heaven will be estab- 
lished upon the earth, and the petition of our Lord's 
prayer be fulfilled, Thy Kingdom come." The idea 
of a millennial reign of Christ on the earth is not a 
theory, composed of cunningly devised fables. For 
sixteen hundred years of the world 's history it was the 
one luminous hope of the Church. For more than three 
centuries it was accepted by the best of Christians 
and the brightest scholars of the Church as a tradition 
apostolical, and as such it was delivered by many 
Fathers of the second and third centuries, who spoke 
of it as a tradition of our Lord and His apostles, and 
all of the ancients who lived before them. They fur- 
ther assure us that the question of the personal reign 
of Christ on the earth was the orthodox position of the 
Church, and they strengthen their opinions with abun- 
dant quotations from the scriptures. It was received 
[185] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

in the eastern parts of the Church by Papius, in Phry- 
gia by Justin, in Palestine by Irenaeus, in Gaul by 
Nepos, in Egypt by Apollinarius and Methodius ; but 
it was also accepted in the South and West, by Ter- 
tullian, in Africa by Cyprian and Victorinus, in Ger- 
many by Lactantius and Severus, in Italy by the first 
Nicene Council. The great preachers and brilliant 
scholars mentioned above, taught the doctrine not as 
scholars only, but claimed to be personal witnesses to 
the fact, that they received it as a tradition from 
Christ and His apostles, and which was taught to 
them by the elders, the disciples of Christ. The doc- 
trine of a spiritual Millennium, consisting in a univer- 
sal triumph of the gospel, and the conversion of all 
nations for a thousand years before the coming of 
Christ, is a novel theory, and was unknown for sixteen 
hundred years in the Church. Dr. Daniel Whitby, who 
was born in Northamptonshire, England, in 1638, is 
the author of the doctrine. It is the accepted doctrine 
of the Roman Catholic Church and of a majority of 
Protestants. However, the tides are turning in favor 
of the pre-Millennial theory, and many able Protestant 
scholars and eminent laymen of all denominations are 
boldly returning to the scriptural position, and from 
pulpit and platform, in private and public, thru the 
press secular and religious, are advocating it earnestly 
with the most appreciable results. Men are being 
turned to the pathway of the Word, "and they are 
inquiring after the old paths, that they may walk 
therein." It is a remarkable fact that prior to the 

[186] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

commencement of the eighteenth century, the Post- 
Millennial theory did not have one able writer or 
eminent scholar to advocate its unreasonable and auda- 
cious claims. If antiquity is to be considered as hav- 
ing weight in the establishment of a question of reli- 
gion or theology, then the Pre-Millennial doctrine has 
all the argument in its favor, because it is supported 
by both antiquity and the plain unequivocal teachings 
of the scriptures. It is not to be denied, that the gospel 
of Christ has achieved innumerable victories in every 
age, and among all peoples, wherever and whenever it 
has been preached, and it will continue to be the 
strongest and most effective civilizing force, and the 
only means of salvation for lost men, until 

"the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old, 
And the leaves of the judgment book unfold. " 

But Jesus never promised to Christianize the 
world or bring a period of universal peace and right- 
eousness thru the vanquishment of sin and the over- 
throw of Satan's kingdom during the Gentile Dispen- 
sation, and He said that He would come at the close of 
the gospel age which is distinctively evangelistic. The 
world will be evangelized and all nations shall hear ot 
the Christ of God and all who repent and believe shall 
be saved ; but He taught the truth also in the twenty- 
fifth chapter of Mathew, that all would not be saved 
when He returned to the world. There is not the 
remotest hint in His description of the judgment of 

[187] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

the nations that all races will be Christianized and 
spiritually prepared to receive Him at His coming. 
He teaches the reverse, and sets His seal of approval 
to the Pre-Millennial theory, in His deliverance of the 
parable of the wise and foolish virgins, and going fur- 
ther, He elaborates His position with a description of 
the judgment of the nations. Was the "evil servant" 
who became a bestial, cruel and brutal over-lord, and 
who is mentioned by the Lord Jesus, in Mathew 24 :42- 
51, a Christians Do you think that "God is slack 
concerning His promise," and that Jesus will remain 
over the time appointed for His return, in order to 
betray men into the meshes of judgment? But Jesus 
said this "evil servant" thought so, and said in his 
heart, ' ' My Lord delayeth His coming. ' ' He certainly 
will not be prepared for the return of Jesus, because he 
does not entertain the proper conception of Christ's 
reliability. Then, there is the man without the wed- 
ding garment, mentioned in Mathew 22 :2-14, and the 
one talent man mentioned in the twenty-fifth chapter. 
The parables do not favor the view of a millennial 
conquest of the nations and the extension of universal 
peace to all world-races. But there is one point of 
agreement between the advocates of Pre-Millennialism 
and those persons who believe in a spiritual Millen- 
nium, viz; both accept the idea that there is to be a 
Millennium and that it will last a long period of time. 
The word Millennium is derived from the latin, mille, 
meaning a thousand. The Greek for a thousand is 
chilioi. The early Christians were called chiliasts. 

[188] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

Christians of all the world and of every name and 
order are looking for Jesus to return, and none are so 
reckless as to predict the time when He will return, 
except false prophets; neither is any so daring as to 
assert that He is not near at hand, even at the doors ; of 
the world that He made, for His own glory, and honor 
and service. And all of us are praying for His coming 
and earnestly beseeching Him to keep us in readiness 
for that great event. The sentiments of Wesley appeal 
to our hearts with great force, viz ; 

11 Whatever ills the world befall, 
A pledge of endless good we call — 
A sign of Jesus near. ' ' 

The Millennial period will be preceded by the 
resurrection of the righteous dead. All persons who 
will be accorded the glorious distinction of reigning 
with Jesus during His personal rule and enthrone- 
ment in the world, will have their bodies, but they 
will be made like Jesus, and will be immortal, death- 
less, unchangeable. Hence the scriptures teach that 
there will be, 

A Priority of Resurrection 

the just being raised a thousand years in advance ot 
the unrighteous dead. I approach the discussion of 
this question with solemn reverence, feeling that I 
am about to invade the sacred precincts of the hon- 
ored dead, who are resting from their tiresome labors 
with which they were burdened here on the earth, and 

[189] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

rejoicing with renewed energy and enlargement of 
hope, in the Paradise of God. The doctrine of the 
"First Resurrection" is, perhaps, the profoundesv 
mystery of the future coming or work of the Son of 
God. Orthodox Christians of all creeds and denomina- 
tions accept the doctrine of a literal resurrection of all 
the dead, but multitudes of God's holy saints reject 
the theory of a prior or first resurrection, and teach 
that all person's will be raised at the very same time, 
believer and disbeliever, atheist and martyred saint. 
The doctrine of the resurrection is the basic principle 
of Christianity, and it is so essential to the existence 
of the entire Christian system, as founded by Jesus 
Christ, that it cannot be rejected in whole or in part, 
without doing violence to the very genius of divine life 
and reflecting discreditably upon the veracity of the 
Son of God. We should entertain right views upon all 
scripture teachings. All believers should search the 
scriptures in an effort to ascertain what they teach 
upon all questions of Church doctrines, desiring to 
accept and practice whatever theory they find in them. 
But one can hold decidedly wrong opinions about 
Christian practice, or the subject of Baptism, or of 
faith, sanctification, repentance or other important 
Bible doctrines, and still have an experience of grace ; 
altho it is the duty of every person who has been 
redeemed thru the blood of Christ, to be scriptural in 
belief and practice, yet one cannot be saved or enjoy 
fellowship with God and disbelieve the doctrine of the 
resurrection. Paul says: "But if there be no resur- 

[190] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

rection of the dead, then is not Christ risen: And if 
Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and 
your faith is also vain." I Cor. 15:13-14. Issues of 
life and death hang on the doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion: accept it and live, — reject it and die. The 
Heathen sorrowed over his dead without hope, and in 
despair turned away from the charnel house, never ex- 
pecting to see its occupants come forth, arrayed with 
the unsullied glory of eternal day. Death in his 
thought was a shattered pillar, — a broken harp with 
its music lost, — a flower-bud crushed with all its 
fragrance in it. But not so to the Christian. That 
which seems to be eternal destruction to the Heathen, 
is the gate-way of life to us. It is by dying that we are 
made to live, live forever. The life that is not reached 
by death, is but half secure. The life that lasts, the 
life that is truly immortal and eternal, is only obtained 
by dying. We believe in the resurrection of all the 
dead, and the change of all the living, at the coming 
of Jesus. 

"The time draws on 
When not a single spot of burial earth 
Whether on land, or in the spacious sea, 
But must give back its long committed dust 
Inviolate; and faithfully shall these 
Make up the full amount; not the least atom 
Embezzled or mislaid of the whole tale." 

We are so much concerned about the properties 
of a glorified body, but we are very desirous of a per- 
sonal uprising from the grave; however, we are fur- 

[191] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

nished some reflections of a glorified form, in the mir- 
aculous dealings of God with persons in different ages 
and under widely divergent circumstances. It is said 
the ' ' just shall shine like the sun ; " so shone the face 
of Moses. It is also stated "that they shall fly upon 
the wings of the wind ; ' ' thus was Phillip carried from 
Gaza, in the desert, to Azobus. And "our corruption 
must put on incorruption ' ' as Paul miraculously shook 
off the serpent, and experienced no harm. The resur- 
rection hope is a star, whose unfailing splendor pene- 
trates the blackness of the stormiest night that evei 
passes over the pathway of men, and it lures us onward 
and upward, thru the gloom and in the flash and roar 
of the storm, toward the land of the "brighter and 
more perfect day." 

1 ' There 's a beautiful region above the skies, 
And I long to reach its shore 
For I know I shall find my treasure there, 
The laughing eyes and the amber hair 
Of the loved one gone before." 

But the doctrine of a prior resurrection is not 
generally accepted by those persons who believe in the 
resurrection teaching as a fundamental theory of 
revelation; nevertheless, great scholars and pious, 
worthy Christians of all ages of Christianity have 
given it their most faithful support and advocacy. 
But, is it scriptural? Does the Word of God sustain 
the theory directly, or by remote and variable hint? 
To the Bible, then, let us go for light on this very 

[192] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

important and complicated subject. "And I saw 
thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was 
given unto them : and I saw the souls of them that were 
beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of 
God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither 
his image, neither had received his mark upon their 
foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and 
reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest f 
the dead lived not again until a thousand years were 
finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and 
holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection ; on 
such the second death hath no power, but they shall be 
priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him 
a thousand years. Rev. 20 :4-6. 

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before 
God; and the books were opened; and another book 
was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead 
were judged out of those things which were written in 
the books, according to their works. ' ' Rev. 20 :12. The 
first two passages quoted above, contain six distinct 
propositions, viz; a first resurrection, a Millennial 
reign and a second death ; a tribulation period for the 
ungodly, the final judgment and the second death or 
eternal destruction in Gehenna, the "lake that burns 
with fire and brimstone." Many able commentators 
advance the theory that the resurrection mentioned 
in the above texts is a spiritual resurrection of prin- 
ciples and not of persons. A resurrection or restora- 
tion of the wonderful patience, heroism, fearless cour- 

[193] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

age, Christian steadfastness, and constant devotion of 
the Martyrs. According to this theory, the above 
mentioned principles have been forgotten and buried 
in a time of careless indifference, and they will be 
resurrected during the spiritual and invisible reign of 
Christ, which is still future. But if scripture in part 
of its revelations of truth, has a literal meaning and 
should be so interpreted and understood, it is to be 
applied to the above scriptures. They are meaningless, 
if not literal. They are sealed mysteries, whose oracles 
have put the revelation of God beyond the comprehen- 
sion of the wisest and most devout scholar on the earth, 
if they are to be understood as referring to invisible 
and spiritual matters, that are yet lingering in the dim 
distances of some other time to be. Every person of 
ordinary intelligence will conclude, immediately upon 
reading the above passages, that a future and a literal 
uprising of the dead is clearly and emphatically stated 
by the inspired John. The advocates of the spiritual 
resurrection for the saved are inconsistent in their 
opinions about the resurrection mentioned in the text 
for the unsaved, and this text assures us that thu 
"resurrection of damnation is to be a literal one!" 
The position is absurd. If one is spiritual, the other in 
the very nature of the case is bound to be like it, or 
similar at least to it in kind, because both operations 
involve physical personalities. If the first resurrection 
is one of principles and spiritual, the other one, or the 
resurrection of the unsaved, will likewise be at 

[194] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

resurrection of principles of some sort, and will also 
be spiritual. If not, why not? If the reign of Christ 
is to be spiritual and invisible, it does not take a 
long stretch of the imagination for me to believe 
that the second death or destruction of the finally 
impenitent in a Devil's hell, will be spiritual and in- 
visible too. The leading feature of the above theory 
to my mind, is its invisibility. Mentally speaking, as 
a scriptural fact, it is nil. Logically, there cannot be a 
resurrection of principles, because they cannot be 
separated from the subject and preserved in a buried 
or abandoned form, to be raised at some future time. 
Principles can be rejected, and one may change the 
course of life and introduce new principles; never- 
theless the old principles will live in some other per- 
sonality, and never be destroyed. Principle, no mat- 
ter what you call it, of whatever kind or quality, is 
indestructible; therefore punishment and happiness 
will become eternal in the experience of opposite 
characters. Many principles of human life are very 
objectionable to Jehovah, but He has never said that 
they will be destroyed or forcibly taken away from 
evil men. He teaches the reverse of that proposition, 
and passes judgment upon men and banishes them 
from His presence for entertaining wrong principles, 
tho He does not destroy their principles, nor deprive 
the condemned persons of the right to hold them in 
possession and experience forever. God puts the seal 
of His immortality upon wrong of every kind, when 

[195] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

He passes eternal condemnation upon men, and con- 
signs them to an unending perdition. Principles can 
be restored, revived and re-established, but they can- 
not be resurrected, except in an oratorical or forensic 
sense. And no part of man is subject to resurrection, 
except the body. The soul is subject to a spiritual 
change and can be born again. The spirit of man 
can be brought under the brooding infUuence of the 
Holy Spirit and changed into the form and super- 
scription of the divine image. But the body is not a 
vessel, meet for a re-birth. It must die and return to 
dust. The re-born soul can never die, either in the 
sense of separation or of annihilation, because it has 
the seed of eternal holiness in it. Therefore it is 
written: "Whosoever is born of God doth not com- 
mit sin ; for his seed remaineth in him ; and he cannot 
sin, because he is born of God." But the body can- 
not be born of God. Paul says: "Now this I say, 
brethren, flesh and blood doth not inherit the King- 
dom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incor- 
ruption. ' ' The physical structure of men must reach 
a state of perfection thru a change in the physical 
nature of the race and that is only provided thru 
the resurrection process. Translation of the living at 
the coming of Jesus is the very same work wrought 
on an occupied body as that which is performed on 
an unoccupied, dead and buried one. Therefore re- 
generation is a spiritual, or the spiritual change for the 
soul, and resurrection is the only change for the body. 

[196] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

Now, I will endeavor to prove by the scriptures that 
there is a period or interval of a thousand years be- 
tween the resurrection of the righteous and the un- 
righteous dead. However, it does not make any 
particular difference as to the length of time that 
expires between the two events because "one day 
with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand 
years as one day." The glorified saints of Jehovah 
will not be affected by physical laws or operations as 
they are now, neither will nature have its latitudes 
and eclipses and wandering stars, and flaming met- 
eors and gorgeous comets and storms, as at the 
present time ; for the world — nature — will be 
changed, so as to be consonant to the resurrected 
and immortalized natures of its magnificent inhab- 
itants. We will pass from the realm of the finite in 
the change from death to life, and nature itself will 
not decay nor bring forth a blasted harvest, nor fail 
to bear a perfect fruitage, during the first resurrec- 
tion period. Death and blight and moths and mil- 
dew will be unknown. But there will be an interval 
of time, and the scriptures say it will be a thousand 
years, between the two resurrections. Jesus empha- 
sized the distinction between the resurrection of the 
good and evil. "Marvel not at this: for the hour is 
coming, in the which all that are in the graves (both 
bad and good), shall hear His voice, And shall come 
forth; they that have done good unto the resurrec- 
tion of life; and they that have done evil, unto the 

[197] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

resurrection of damnation." Jno. 5:28,29. Jesus 
draws a line of demarkation in the resurrection 
scene, and sharply divides the two classes mentioned 
in His statements. One class comes forth to a 
"resurrection of life," and the other is different, being 
a "resurrection unto damnation." If both occur at 
the same moment of time, where is the betterness of 
the first resurrection, that was believed by Abra- 
ham, and shown to all generations of mankind, when 
he refused to disbelieve God, and keep Isaac? "By 
faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac ; 
and he that had received the promise offered up his 
only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac 
shall thy seed be called : Accounting that God was able 
to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence 
also he received him in a figure." Heb. 11:17-19. 
Abraham believed in a better resurrection and was 
therefore willing for God to have Isaac, the heir of 
promise; for he expected that God would raise him 
to life again and that his name and race would be 
perpetuated thereby. Thus we see that he believed 
in the priority of resurrection. In the same chapter 
it is stated that, "women received their dead raised 
to life again : and others were tortured, not accepting 
deliverance; that they might obtain a better resur- 
rection." Verse 35. They certainly believed in a 
"better resurrection" and one that held some special 
honor and distinction for their dead, who were the 
subjects under consideration, according to the in- 

[198] 



THE MILLENNIUM 

spired apostle, and they preferred to let their loved 
ones remain in the dust of the earth, until that "bet- 
ter resurrection," or "the resurrection of life" per- 
iod should arrive, that "they might have a better 
resurrection." Then if both classes are raised at the 
same time and under the same conditions, wherein 
will the resurrection of righteous be more honorable, 
distinctively glorious, and better than that of the 
other class? Luke mentions a special resurrection in 
his gospel. "But they which shall be accounted 
worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection 
from the dead, neither marry nor are given in mar- 
riage ; Neither can they die any more ; and are the 
children of God, being the children of the resurrec- 
tion." Lu. 20:35-36. He quotes the Saviour, and 
gives Him full credit for the statement. Jesus spec- 
ially stresses three points in the above texts, viz; (a) 
there is some ivorthiness possessed by those who will 
have part in it, that is not common to men; (b) per- 
sons raised at the time that He mentions will have 
the special distinction of being the "children of the 
resurrection," and (c) they will enter a deathless 
state, and will "never die any more." The unsaved 
will be raised unto eternal death, which involves pun- 
ishment for their sins, and hopeless separation from 
God. They enter into death at the resurrection, and 
begin to die eternally. They are also raised natural 
people, having their carnal appetites and propensi- 
ties to sin, tho there will not be left to them any 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

opportunity for the gratification of their sinful de- 
sires. That will be death in an aggravated form, not 
to say anything about the terrible tortures of hell, 
into which they will be thrust at the time of their 
resurrection. The resurrection of the righteous will 
result in the elimination of all carnality, depravity 
and human weakness. They will be deathless, incor- 
ruptible and glorious, "as the angels." They go out 
of mortal death into an immortal state of happiness 
and life, while the unsaved pass thru a finite and 
temporal, into an infinite and eternal death, in the 
process of resurrection. Then is it possible to con- 
ceive that they will take place at the same time? 
Paul adds his testimony to the superior excellency of 
the knowledge of Jesus, and the power of His resur- 
rection. He says: "Yea doubtless, and I count all 
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge 
of Christ Jesus my Lord : for whom I have suffered 
the loss of all things, and do count them but dung 
that I may win Christ, And be found in Him, not 
having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, 
but that which is thru the faith of Christ, the right- 
eousness which is of God by faith : That I may know 
Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the 
fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable 
to His death; If by any means I might attain unto 
the resurrection of the dead." Phil. 3:8-11. His 
language is peculiarly difficult of interpretation in 
harmony with the commonly accepted orthodox view 

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THE MILLENNIUM 

of a general resurrection, unless it is admitted that 
he believed in a special resurrection for the saints. 
But those who are familiar with Paul's writings are 
aware of the fact that he believed in the uprising of 
all the dead. He had been falsely accused of preach- 
ing heresy, and turning the people against Moses and 
the law, and perverting the hope of Israel in the 
past ; and when making his defense, he used the fol- 
lowing words: "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, 
the son of a Pharisee : of the hope and resurrection of 
the dead I am in question." Acts 23 :6. This is posi- 
tive proof that he believed in a resurrection of all the 
dead, a belief which was accepted by the Pharisees 
and rejected by the Sadducees. If that is true, then 
what does he mean, when he tells the Phillipians that 
he desires to know Christ, "and the power of His re- 
surrection?" Was Paul unsaved when he wrote 
those words? Was he not the very chief est apostle, 
and more abundant in good works than they all? He 
knew that he would be raised from the dead, no 
matter how he lived in this world. He believed that 
all persons, good and bad, would be raised from the 
dead, and called into the presence of God for judg- 
ment, and he taught it plainly on all occasions. 
Hence, he must have referred to a special resurrec- 
tion for those who knew Christ "and the power of 
His resurrection," being made "conformable to His 
death." And he thus explains his language to the 
Phillipians, in his letter to the Thessalonians. "For 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a 
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the 
trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first : 
Then we which are alive shall be caught up with 
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: so 
shall we ever be with the Lord." I Thes. 4:16. 

Here it is positively asserted, that the "dead in 
Christ," not out of Christ, shall "rise first," coming 
out of their graves before the living are translated, or 
the unsaved dead are disturbed from their fateful 
slumbers of eternal doom. This is what he meant in 
his letter to the Phillipians. This is the "better re- 
surrection" of the ancient mothers in Israel and the 
one in which the "power of Christ's resurrection" 
will be demonstrated and that Paul so earnestly 
sought. Let us hear Jesus, in this connection, on the 
subject again. "But when thou makest a feast, call 
the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind : And thou 
shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: 
for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of 
the just." Lu. 14:13-14. If this passage stood alone, 
like a single star in a vacant heaven, I would not 
insist upon it to prove a special resurrection of the 
saints, coming before the resurrection of the lost 
dead ; but, surrounded as it is, in the horizon of revel- 
ation by a galaxy of luminous promises, I am forced 
to conclude that Jesus had a first resurrection in 
mind, when he assured the disciples that if they fol- 
lowed His instructions, they would be "recompensed 

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THE MILLENNIUM 

at the resurrection of the just." And there was no 
need for Jesus to say "at the resurrection of the 
just," if both classes rise at the same time. He could 
have said, "at the resurrection," or at the uprising 
of all the dead, which would have covered the 
ground. But He makes a discrimination in favor of 
a resurrection to special honor, and the rewards of 
service for the saved, that, like "Banquo's ghost 
will not down;" and the conclusion is irresistible 
that He had reference to an event that would take 
place prior to the resurrection of the impenitent 
dead and the final judgment of the world. The 
saints are to judge the world, and they must there- 
fore be installed in the place of assize and endowed 
with the prerogative of judgment, before the event 
takes place. In conclusion, let us briefly consider a 
passage, previously quoted from the twentieth chap- 
ter of Revelation. "Blessed is he that hath part in 
the first resurrection : on such the second death hath 
no power, but they shall be priests of God and of 
Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." 
This is undoubtedly a resurrection of persons and not 
one of principles or spiritual privileges. It is pre- 
viously stated in the fifth verse, that "the rest of the 
dead lived not again until the thousand years were 
finished. This is the first resurrection." According 
to the plain statement of scripture, the visible reign 
of Jesus Christ and the introduction of the Messianic 
age of universal peace in the world will not occur 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

until after the first resurrection, nor will Satan be 
bound until after that mysterious and remarkable 
event. There can never be a reign of peace, univer- 
sal righteousness and undisturbed spiritual happi- 
ness and power in this world until Satan is chained 
and his unhallowed influence eliminated from the 
world. Tho countless millions have been redeemed 
thru the blood of Christ, and from among all races, 
and in every age, nevertheless it is true that Satan 
has effectively hindered the advancement of Chris- 
tianity and prevented the universal establishment of 
divine ideals in this world. The majority of the in- 
habitants of the earth, at the present time, are under 
the influence of his blighting and soul-withering pow- 
er, and there has never been an era of the world's 
history when that terrible fact was not true. Jesus 
said, " Enter ye in at the straight gate: for wide is 
the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to de- 
struction and many there be which go in thereat: 
Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, 
which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find 
it." Math. 7 :13-14. Thus spake the son of God, who 
has all wisdom, and understands the secrets of all 
human hearts, and knows and provides for the des- 
tiny and termination of all things, from and before 
the beginning. The following lines from Euripides 
are as true today and as applicable to present affairs 
as they were to the time in which they were uttered, 
viz; 

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THE MILLENNIUM 

' ' Should bright 'ning hope, to cheer the troubled 
day, 
Pour thru the gloom a transient ray, 
Fate comes and o'er the darken 'd scene 
Spreads the deep horrors of its dreary reign. ' ' 

It is interesting to note that the number of 
earth's inhabitants is computed to be 1,450,000,000 of 
whom 800,000,000 live in Asia, 320,000,000 in Europe, 
210,000,000 in Africa, 110,000,000 in America and 
10,000,000 in the islands of the sea. With regard to 
religion they are classified as follows: 860,000,000 
are Pagan, comprising 600,000,000 Brahmans and 
Buddhists ; 160,000,000 unclassified Pagans ; 100,000, 
000 Parsees, Confucianists, Shintoists, Jains and 
other smaller Pagan sects. 410,000,000 are classed as 
distinctively Christians, of whom 225,000,000 are 
Roman Catholics, 75,000,000 of the Greek Church, 
and 110,000,000 Protestants. 172,000,000 Moham- 
medans and 8,000,000 Jews. Unless the figures lie, 
the overwhelming majority of mankind is under the 
dominion of Satan, and inasmuch as we have had 
practically two thousand years of gospel evangeliza- 
tion, and the world has not yet been conquered and 
evil suppressed, can we therefore reasonably enter- 
tain the idea that the gospel is about to be the given 
right-of-way to all the nations and undisputed sway 
and world-wide dominion, and that it is to rule in 
the hearts and affairs of all men? But the gospel is 
a glorious success. It is accomplishing the divine 
purpose to which it was sent, and without it there 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

would not be any restraining influence in this world 
to manacle the wrists of Satan's power. And it is 
marching grandly on to a culmination of Satan's 
rule and power in the earth, and in the not distant 
future the Lord Jesus will come for His jewels, and 
the Kingdom of God will be established with power 
and great glory, and endure thru a period of a thou- 
sand years of peace and revival and perfection of 
service, without any opposition from seen or unseen 
foes of the Cross. Then, when will evil cease and 
wars have an end? When will Jesus be our ruling, 
all-glorious King? When will the dissonance of the 
universe and the riotous discord of ages cease ? When 
will the nations live upon the basis of the "Golden 
Rule," and cease to learn the bloody arts of war? 
War, that claimed the immortality of death and sin? 
When will come the time that Satan and his cohorts 
will weep over the grave of their most effective 
confederate, WAR! Cruel, remorseless war, the scor- 
pion sting of nations, the scourge of the widow, and 
the plague of the orphan? WHEN SATAN IS 
CHAINED ! No peace of nations and individuals in 
a permanent way, while he is loose to work iniquity 
and deception in the world. But the words of Long- 
fellow are refreshing : 

"Down the dark future, thru long generations 
The echoing sounds grow fainter, and then cease ; 
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, 
I hear once more the voice of Christ say "Peace" 

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THE MILLENNIUM 

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals 
The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies! 

But beautiful as the songs of the immortals, 
The holy melody of love arise. " 



[207] 



CHAPTER X 

Christian Ideal as Expressed in 
a Finished Redemption 

"If all our hopes and all our fears 

Were prisoned in life's narrow bound; 
If travelers thru this vale of tears, 

We saw no better world beyond; 
Oh, what could check the rising sigh? 

What earthly thing could pleasure give ? 
Oh, who could venture then to die? 

Oh, who could then endure to live?" 

Sinless perfection is undoubtedly the distinct 
Christian ideal. The scriptures teach it on every 
page of the inspired word ; but if the writers of the 
Bible intended to convey the idea that it was access- 
ible to men in this present life and experience, then 
it is true that Christianity has failed, and the hope 
that sustains us in all of our trials, temptations and 
soul-harrowing experiences, is delusive and mis-lead- 
ing. There is a sense in which the believer is sin- 
lessly perfect at the present time, viz ; being justified 
thru faith in Christ and having been "made a new 
creature in Christ Jesus, ' ' we are therefore not under 
eternal judgment, because we are covered, so to 
speak, by Jesus, the prototype of the human race, 
and the Christian's personal substitute under law. 
God cannot see any sin in us, for the reason that He 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

accepts us for His Son's sake, and invariably sees us 
thru Jesus, our perfect Mediator. But we sin never- 
theless. God sees the sin, but only in the present 
sense of having received eternal satisfaction for it, 
thru the atonement that was made by Jesus in His 
death and sufferings on Calvary. There is no past 
or future with the Tribune God — the Holy Three in 
One. The Three Persons of the Trinity live in the 
eternal NOW ! And tho sin enters into our lives and 
brings its terrible curse upon all our ways, it is also 
a fact that, in God's mind, it has been eternally can- 
celled, never to be revived in judgment against us. Our 
natures having previously been changed and the 
affections of the heart purified and centered upon 
Jesus, we personally pass sentence upon our sin as an 
unworthy act, hateful to God, and distressing to us, 
and we cry out against it in sincere contrition and 
beseech the help of our God, in an effort to get rid 
of its presence and memory. "And hereby we know 
that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts 
before Him. For if our heart condemn us (and it 
does when we sin), God is greater than our heart, 
and knoweth all things." Jno. 3:19-20. 

Sin being contrary to the re-born nature of the 
Christian, it no sooner enters the heart and begins to 
demand recognition, than it is rejected; and should 
it be given audience and appear in the life as an 
unholy act, it will be condemned with bitter peni- 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

tence. Then we will turn away from the vicious, un- 
worthy, detestable thing, and like David of old, who 
fell under the witchery of a beautiful woman and 
committed an act of lecherous immorality, we will 
lift our wounded hearts to God in fervent prayer, and 
exclaim: "Create in me a clean heart, God; and 
renew a right spirit within me." Ps. 51:10. And 
God will give us special grace and cleansing, restor- 
ing the "joy of salvation," reviving the heart, and 
removing the agonizing memory of sin, because He 
hates sin for it killed His Son. A young man re- 
turned home from college in one of the southern states 
to spend the Christmas Holidays with his parent- 
He was an only son in the home, the loving pride of 
his mother and a crowning glory to his aged and 
highly honored father. He was a noble Christian 
and a devout believer in Jesus. Christmas morning 
he told his mother that he would go down back of 
the orchard in search of Quail. Shortly after he had 
gone, his mother heard the report of a gun, but 
thought nothing more about it, until the noon hour. 
She became uneasy and upon telling her fears to the 
old father, they began a search for the belated son, 
who was never to return to the old home again in 
life. They found his body, stark and cold in death, 
and from that time the mother could not endure the 
report of a gun, because it killed her son, — her only 
son. God, the Father, hates sin for the same reason, 
and He will destroy it, and remove every trace of it 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

from the experiences of His children and from the 
domain of His glorious universe. ' ' For we know that 
the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
together until now. And not only they, but ourselves 
also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even 
we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the 
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies." Ro. 
8 :22-23. But, until Satan is banished from this 
world and the curse is removed from the visible 
creation, the inhabitants of this lower sphere of life 
will have to deal with sin as a continual menace and 
indestructible antagonism. We have no promise that 
sin will ever pass from the life of the world, nor 
cease to affect the destiny of nations or individuals, 
until the earth is made new and the physical natures 
of men are brought thru resurrection into harmony 
with their regenerated natures and glorified. 

1 i Nor wilt thou, alas ! be withheld from its snares 
By a mother's kind counsel, a mother's fond prayers; 
Yet fear not, the God whose direction we crave 
Is mighty to strengthen, to shield and to save: 
And His hand may yet lead thee, a glorified guest, 
To the home of thy mother, the land of the blest!" 

The Doctrine of Apokatastasis Restitution 

finds abundant verification in the scriptures. "The 
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, 
until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord 
shall send the rod of strength out of Zion : rule thou 
in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be 
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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

willing in the day of thy power, in the beanties of 
holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast 
the dew of thy youth. The Lord at thy right hand 
shall strike thru kings in the day of His wrath. He 
shall judge among the Heathen, He shall fill the 
places with dead bodies; He shall wound the heads 
over many countries." Ps. 110:1-6. "For He hath 
put all things under His feet. But when He sayeth 
all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He 
is excepted, which did put all things under Him. 
And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then 
shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that 
put all things under Him that God may be all in all." 
I Cor. 15 :27-28. Christ Jesus will reign, Mediatorily, 
at the "right hand" of the Father, until the close of 
the present age of world-wide gospel evangelization, 
which is being done thru the direction of the Holy 
Spirit, the substitute of Jesus in the Church. Then, 
in connection with the fulfillment of the Gentile Dis- 
pensation, the Mediatorial work of Christ as our 
great High Priest in heaven will be finished, and He 
will return to the central or starry heavens; and 
taking the Church (Zion) into His presence, He will 
later (as it has previously been shown), descend to 
the earth and "rule in the midst of his enemies," 
"strike thru kings in the days of his wrath," "judge 
among the Heathen," and fill the valley of Megiddo 
and all the earth with the "dead bodies" of the Anti- 
Christian hosts. Simultaneously with the accomplish- 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

ment of the Church's mission in the world and ascen- 
sion to the descended Lord, the calling of Israel or 
rather conversion of Jews, who have been preserved 
thru the period of Tribulation, — and the destruction 
of Anti-Christ, will take place. "For I would not, 
brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, 
lest ye should be wise in your conceits ; that blindness 
in part has happened to Israel, until the fulness of 
the Gentiles be come in." Re. 11:25. Thus out of the 
glorified Gentile Church and thru it, as His body and 
over it, as its Head and Lord, Jesus will, as the 
"Mighty God" of Isaiah's prophecy and the "Shiloli 
of Judah, ' ' descend to the earth and destroy the enem- 
ies of God, eliminate sin from the world, redeem the 
earth from the curse that was imposed upon it thru the 
disobedience of the First Adam, restore Paradise, in- 
augurate the triumphant Kingdom of God, re-establish 
the throne of David and reign over the Davidic cove- 
nant subjects, the Abrahamic heirs of promise and 
glorified members of the Gentile Church. When Christ 
comes the second time, the Church age will have 
ended, and the Kingdom age will be introduced. 
Then we shall witness the fulfillment of the "desires 
of all nations," as indicated in the model prayer, 
viz ; " Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth 
as it is in heaven." The Jews were given the oppor- 
tunity of taking full control of the Church, but they 
rejected Jesus, and lost it, and also the administra- 
tion of all kingdom life in the world, because the 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

executive authority of the kingdom was transferred 
to the Church; hence the "Gentiles have exercised 
authority over them/' in the spiritual and gospel 
sphere of promise, until the present time. If the Jew 
had accepted Christ and received the gospel, Gentiles 
would be the principal culprits in the death of Christ. 
I understand that it was the purpose of God from 
the beginning of human history and countless eons 
before, to redeem men thru the death of His Son ; and 
the Jews being the chosen people of God, Jesus was 
sent first to them with the glad-tidings of salvation, 
and they were given the refusal of God's plan of 
redemption. If they had received Jesus as their 
King, the Roman authorities would have been forced 
upon their own initiative to have made away with 
Christ, as it would have appeared to them to be 
necessary in the protection of the Imperial empire of 
Caesar; and they today would have no Church, no 
promise, no hope and no salvation. But God, who 
appointed His Son to be the successor of David and 
to reign on his throne during the Messianic age, also 
raised up Jesus to be the light of the Gentiles. It 
cannot be denied that the Gentiles are deeply in- 
volved in the tragedy of Calvary. Herod had it in 
his power to have prevented it taking place at the 
time it did happen; but desiring to show a favor to 
the Jews, who were clamoring for His death, he per- 
mitted them to have their way and let Jesus die, like 
a malefactor in the company of thieves, while he fur- 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

ther granted the Jews their unholy and impious 
wishes and allowed the murderer, Barabbas to live. 
Thus it is clear to any candid person, that Pilate ; 
as the representative of Caesar, was really more 
deeply responsible for the death of Jesus than were 
the Jews, who persistently cried: "Let His blood be 
on us and our children," because they did not believe 
that Jesus was their Messiah, and their opposition to 
Him therefore, was largely due to their ignorance 
and wicked, superstitious stupidity. But evidently, 
Pilate was convinced that Jesus was all that he 
claimed to be, — that He was innocent of their 
charges, and he acknowledged Him to be a good man 
and guiltless, assuring the Jews that he "found no 
fault in Him ; ' ' hence, he sinned against the greater 
light in giving his consent to the Crucifixion of Jesus. 
Peter says : ' ' The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and 
of Jacob, the God of our Fathers, hath glorified His 
Son Jesus ; whom ye delivered up and denied Him the 
presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him 
go. But ye denied the holy One and the Just, and de- 
sired a murderer to be granted unto you ; and killed the 
Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead ; 
whereof we are witnesses. ***And now, brethren, I wot 
that thru ignorance ye did it, as did also rulers. 
But those things which God before had shewed by the 
mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer, 
He hath fulfilled. ' ' Acts 3 :13-18. The death of Christ 
was mutually conspired by all persons that were in 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

any way concerned in it, both Jews and Gentiles. 
The fact is plain to all Bible readers that God incor- 
porated the idea of universal restitution of nature, 
and all creatures that were included in the pre-deter- 
mined plan of redemption that was to be established 
and consummated thru Christ, in 

The Covenants of Promise Made to Abraham 

"Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out 
of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy 
father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: 
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will 
bless thee, and make thy name great ; and thou shalt 
be a blessing : And I will bless them that bless thee, 
and curse him that curseth thee : and in thee shall all 
families of the earth be blessed." Gen. 12:1-3. 

The above promise awaits fulfillment. And 
there is no divine seer among us who is wise enough 
to predict the time in the future ages when it will 
be literally accomplished; for it remains a hidden 
mystery of eternity and this fact all humble, tho 
great and learned scholars reverently acknowledge. 
Pious and learned men in the scriptures freely admit 
that the gospel of the kingdom has not given the 
blessing of "faithful Abraham" to all races of the 
earth yet, in the sense of exhausting the divine mean- 
ing of the promise, viz; "in Abraham shall all the 
families of the earth be blessed." The descendants 
of Abraham were distinctively the heirs of promise ; 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

but this promise was also extended to other races in 
its gracious provisions of salvation thru them. In 
Abraham all " families of the earth" were to become 
"the children of Abraham," tho they were not 
"Abraham's seed;" that is, Jews or Ishmaelites. 
The language of the covenant makes it wholly gra- 
cious, and absolutely unconditional. The Jews had 
but to abide in their own land, in order to obtain 
every blessing indicated indirectly, or that was 
plainly expressed in the covenant ; but in the light of 
changes that passed in Israel's history, it is very 
evident that God intended to give all peoples the 
advantage of its merciful provisions of redemption, 
and divine calling thru Jesus "the Seed of Abra- 
ham ; ' ' and who will deny that Jehovah had the gos- 
pel in mind, with its universal extension thru all ages 
and to all races of people the world over, when He 
made the covenant with Abraham. I cite the follow- 
ing fact in proof of the foregone statement, viz; in 
Egypt the Jews lost their blessings but not their 
covenant; however, the dispensation of promise, or 
grace, was sacrificed by them when they accepted the 
law at Sinai. "And all the people answered to- 
gether, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we 
will do. And Moses returned the words of the people 
unto the Lord." Ex. 19 :8. Israel made the fatal mis- 
take of exchanging grace for law. But let it be kept 
in mind that up to this event the covenant was ex- 
clusively Israelitish; and if God had not intended 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

that the seeming tragedy should occur in the destiny 
of Israel and in the interest of Gentile races, why 
did He not prevent it? The law did not abrogate 
or nullify the promise but was adopted as an inter- 
mediary disciplinary plan, "until the Seed should 
come to whom the promise was made." "Where- 
fore then serveth the law? It was added because of 
transgressions, till the Seed should come (Jesus), to 
whom the promise was made ; and it was ordained by 
angels in the hand of a Mediator. Now a Mediator 
is not a Mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law 
then against the promises of God ? God forbid : for 
if there had been a law given that could have given 
life, verily righteousness would have been by the 
law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, 
that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be 
given to them that believe." Gal. 3 :19-22. Thus the 
promise included Israel, filling the interval of time 
between the revelation of the covenant and its terms 
mentioned in the twelfth chapter of Genesis, and the 
nineteenth chapter of Exodus, that declares the fact 
of Israel's acceptance of the law. But we must make 
the correct distinction between the dispensation and 
the covenant, the former being a method of testing, 
while the latter is unconditional and everlasting; 
hence, only the dispensation as a trial or testing of 
Israel ended upon the giving of the law, and not the 
covenant of salvation thru the grace of God, that was 
freely bestowed upon all penitent believers before, 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

and since the death of Jesus. The law, therefore, as 
a method of God's dealing with man, characterized 
the dispensation that extended from Sinai to Cal- 
vary, and which ended with the death of Jesus. 

Since that event, the promise has superseded 
the law, and salvation is freely offered to all men, 
upon the terms of unmerited grace made effective 
thru the atonement of the blood of Jesus. Therefore, 
the promise that was included in the original cove- 
nant of Abraham is universally extended thru the 
gospel to all the world, and different races of people 
are being given the same superior covenant relations 
with God, that the Jew enjoyed as an exclusive bless- 
ing, prior to his acceptance of law as a life-guiding 
principle at Sinai; and thru "repentance toward 
God and faith in Jesus Christ, ' ' persons of every race 
and tribe and tongue and color are permitted to en- 
joy its present blessings and live in "hope of the 
eternal glory of God" that is to be revealed in future 
ages. And they will be included as subjects of the 
triumphant Kingdom, during the personal and visi- 
ble reign of Jesus on the earth. The doctrine of Mil- 
lennium is set forth by the prophets as being the per 
iod of the world's history when all things will be 
restored to the undisputed authority and control of 
the Creator. Jacob spoke of Shiloh (Christ), and 
said: "Unto Him shall the gathering of the people 
be," and Moses in deuteronomy 32:21, declared: "I 
will provoke them to jealousy with those who are not 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

a people ; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish 
nation. ' ' Truly this is fulfilled in the present age, in 
the fact that the gospel line has fallen at the feet of 
all nations, and its words of hope and redeeming 
truth have gone to the end of the world. In a 
moment of rapture the inspired Psalmist cried, "All 
the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto 
the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall 
worship before thee. For the Kingdom is the Lord's : 
and He is the governor among the nations." And 
again the same writer asserts: "He shall dominion 
also from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the end 
of the earth." The above terms incorporate the 
most barbarous and uncivilized tribes of the earth, 
and they specially mention tribes whose boast it is 
that they were never conquered, as the untamed 
rovers of the wilderness, who mocked the power and 
military prowess of Imperial Rome, in past centuries. 
All nations bowed before the scepter of the conquer- 
ing i ' Mistress of the Seven Hills, ' ' but the triumph- 
ant legions of Rome failed to subdue Ishmael. But 
Jesus will have members of all the wild tribes and 
denizens of the forests, who will gladly accept Him 
as their King, and having been tamed, "clothed and 
in their right minds, ' ' will give Him effective service. 
But listen to Isaiah: "It shall come to pass in the 
last days, that the mountains of the Lord's house 
shall be established in the tops of the mountains, and 
shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

flow unto it." Ezekiel, looking thru the vista of 
intervening ages, saw the establishment of the King- 
dom of God, the re-gathering of the Jews in company 
with redeemed Gentiles, the consummation of the re- 
demptive work of Jesus, and the restoration of the 
world to its pristine glory, and he spoke of it as 
follows: "For thus saith the Lord God; Behold I, 
even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. 
As a shepherd seeketh his flock in the day that he is 
among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek 
out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places 
where they have been scattered in the cloudy and 
dark day." 

Now let Jeremiah speak: "They shall call Jeru- 
salem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations 
shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to 
Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after 
the imagination of their evil heart." The prophet 
believed in an age that was still future, when the 
inhabitants of the world would universally be pure 
in heart, perfect in conduct, living upon the principle 
expressed in the Golden Rule and having immortal- 
ized and glorified bodies. The people he saw in vis- 
ion of that far distant time, were human beings, 
dwelling in resurrected and changed bodies. They 
did not have flesh and blood as we have, tho they 
have had physical structures. They were the child- 
ren of God by the heavenly birth of their spiritual 
natures, and by the adoption of their physical nat- 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

ures in covenant relations with Jesus in Kingdom 
life, and they were dwelling in bodies that had been 
redeemed from the dust of the earth ; hence they did 
not "learn war any more," because they were harm- 
less, undefiled, holy and sinless. There was no evil 
of any sort in the world. The shadow of the curse 
had passed from the face of nature that shone re- 
splendent in the effulgent light and flashing splendor 
of redeemed hosts. Zephaniah also caught a glimpse 
of the coming Kingdom and warned the nations of its 
terrors and awful judgments: "The Lord will be 
terrible unto them : for He will famish all the gods of 
the earth; and men shall worship Him, every one 
from his place, even all the isles of the Heathen." 
The Holy Spirit touched the mind of Zechariah with 
the wand of inspiration, and caused him to see spark- 
ling gleams of the encrimsoned glory of the rising 
Messianic age, and when he awoke from his en- 
chanted dreams about eternal things, he said: "He 
shall speak peace unto the Heathen, and His dom- 
inion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the 
rivers even to the end of the earth." "And the 
Lord shall be king over all the earth : in that day 
there shall be one Lord, and His name one." But I 
must forbear to quote from Daniel, Habakuk, Mal- 
achi and the rest of the prophets, since time would 
fail me in repeating their statements about this im- 
portant subject, for they all mentioned it. 

Peter, using for a pulpit the porch of the temple 
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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

that was named in honor of Solomon, said to the 
wondering Jews: " Repent ye therefore, and be con- 
verted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the 
times of refreshing shall come from the presence of 
the Lord ; And He shall send Jesus Christ, which be- 
fore was preached unto you : Whom the heaven must 
receive until the times of restitution of all things, 
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy 
prophets since the world began." Acts 3:19-21. Do 
not confuse the biblical doctrine of restitution with 
the fanciful and freakish theory of Origen, who 
taught that evil of every kind would be removed 
from the world, and also from eternity and that, thru 
restoration of good in every sphere of life, evil would 
pass away. He therefore taught that unrepentant 
souls after death were punished (and that is true) ; 
but also, that they were instructed by spirits who are 
nearer to God than any person in this world, and 
that they would be led to accept Jesus, and be saved 
after death. Origen believed that the Devil and all 
of his evil demons would be finally restored in hum- 
ble obedience to the will of God, and that punish- 
ment and sin would cease to exist. Origen believed 
in universal salvation and complete restoration of 
everything that was contrary to the will of God, thru 
the death of Jesus. But Peter contradicts the posi- 
tion of Origen, and identifies the subjects of the 
restitution in the future age, as having been persons 
who repented and turned from sin in this present 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

world. Paul fully corroborates him and shows that 
repentance is connected with the future judgment of 
the world, and that it qualifies us to participate in 
that day of restitution. "And the times of this 
ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all 
men everywhere to repent: Because He has ap- 
pointed a day, in the which He will judge the world 
in righteousness by that man whom He hath 
ordained; whereof He hath given assurance to all 
men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead." 
Acts 17 :30-31. Repentance must take place in the 
experiences of persons in this life, and they must be 
made "new creatures in Christ Jesus," or else they 
are subjects of judgment and will be eternally and 
hopelessly doomed, if they enter it in an impenitent 
state. The judgment of the final day will involve 
Satan and the demons, the impenitent dead who died 
without Christ and hope, and the unrepentant per- 
sons who will be living when it occurs. And it will 
not reverse anything that has previously taken place 
in the lives of those who will be subject to its terrible 
assize. It will confirm the wicked in eternal demerit. 
Their choice that was voluntarily made in this life 
will be condemned and punished, — not reversed. 
Let it further be borne in mind that if there was any 
scripture that, indirectly, taught the possibility of a 
benevolent change in the condition of the lost, dur- 
ing the trial of judgment, it would be too late for 
such persons or for reformed fallen angels to have 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

any part in the restored universe, because it takes 
place at the close of the Messianic age, and just be- 
fore the destruction of the material world. But 
Jesus forever settles the question of the eternity of 
evil and the unending moral condemnation and the 
judgment of sinners and fallen angels. "Wherefore 
I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy 
shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto 
men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the 
Son of man, it shall be forgiven him : but whosoever 
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be for- 
given him in this world neither in the world to 
come." Math. 12:31-32. The Devil is the original 
sinner against the Holy Ghost, and the impious act 
was committed in heaven. He was then an Arch- 
angel and endowed with great authority and power, 
but having fallen in love with his beautiful form, he 
endeavored to imitate the Son of God, in whom was 
vested regal power and undelegated authority, as the 
divine Logus ; and failing in the accomplishment of his 
purpose, or desire to equal God, he was lifted up with 
pride, and was driven from the presence of his Creator, 
under the irrevocable judgment of blasphemy against 
the Holy Ghost. He spoke against the Son of God in 
heaven and could not be forgiven. Hence blasphemy 
was the sin of The Devil, or Satan, and it is the 
unpardonable sin of demons at the present time. A 
word spoken against the son of man is pardonable, but 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

a slanderous or blasphemous charge against the Son 
of God is not forgivable. Jesus, as the Son of God, 
will finish the Mediatorial work of the Kingdom be- 
fore He takes the throne of judgment, mentioned in 
the twentieth chapter of Revelation. The unpardon- 
able sin according to His definition, is ascribing to 
Satan the works of the Spirit. The Devil does not 
have any authority to work miracles, altho he has 
presumed to exercise his fiendish power in that way, 
in the past, and will do so again in the future. Rev. 
13 :13-14, et al. God as God only has the right to 
work miracles, or those persons to whom He may 
give the power to perform the wonder work, but God 
invariably does all those things thru the Holy Spirit. 
Hence, when the Pharisees charged that Jesus cast 
out a demon thru "Beelzebub the prince of the dev- 
ils," they became guilty of an irrevocable and unfor- 
givable tresspass; and to make the matter convinc- 
ingly plain to them Jesus addressed them in language 
with which they were familiar, and said," You can- 
not be forgiven in this world nor that which is to 
come." The Jews believed that when Messiah came, 
the world would be restored and all sin would be 
removed, and that members of their race who died 
without hope, would be restored to fellowship with 
God, in accordance, as they thought, with the terms 
of the Abrahamic Covenant. But Jesus blasted their 
hopes, and sent them cringing under the searching 
power of words of truth, away from His benign pres- 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

ence and love, and to descend deeper into the gather- 
ing shadows of eternal judgment. Jesus says that 
they cannot ever be forgiven, neither the Devil who 
deceived them; therefore they certainly will not be 
restored, and the "restitution of all things" that 
will be made by Jesus, when He returns, will be 
wrought without them. They could not be forgiven 
here and He will "come the second time without sin 
unto salvation, ' ' and will not forgive or save any one 
during the Millennium. All subjects of that reign 
must obtain peace and pardon during their life-time 
in this world, while they are in the flesh, or they can 
never be forgiven ; because, in death, the natural or 
unregenerated soul becomes eternally identified with 
the corrupt body from which it is separated and must 
be distinguished as a flesh or carnal being, that like 
the body that it occupied in this world "cannot 
inherit (be born into) the kingdom of God." Ge- 
henna, or the place of everlasting punishment, 
is under the damning and accursed power of blas- 
phemy, because it was "prepared for the Devil and 
his angels," and any member of the human race that 
enters it, can never be recovered from its ruin and 
misery. If the sin against the Holy Ghost was 
accessible to men at the present time, Satan would 
induce many to commit it, and pass under the wrath 
of God, and be forced to live out their days here, 
without the hope of salvation, or the least possibility 
of forgiveness. But the damning sin of the Gentile 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

Dispensation is disbelief, the blasphemy or sin 
against the Holy Ghost not being accessible to dis- 
believers in this age, for the reason that it was com- 
mitted in connection with the performance of a mir- 
acle, and since the power to work miracles has lapsed 
in the Church, the unpardonable sin has been placed 
out of reach of modern sinners, and it is safe to assert 
therefore, that it has not been committed by any 
class of disbelievers since apostolic times. But they 
who die in disbelief pass under its judgment when 
they enter the abyss, or prison, where the ante-diluv- 
ians, fallen angels and the lost of all ages are await- 
ing the "judgment of the great day," which will 
take place at the close of the Messianic age. Re- 
demption, therefore, is personal and parallels salva- 
tion, and it is strikingly similar to it in nature and 
results. It is an all-inclusive word, descriptive of 
God's method of bringing the bodies of saved per- 
sons into unity and perfect harmony with their puri- 
fied soul natures. Redemption could not work a 
spiritual change in the natures of human beings, as 
is done in regeneration, tho none but prospectively 
redeemed persons can "be born from above," for the 
reason that it incorporates in its sphere of operation 
the adoption of the body which cannot be born of 
God. Salvation, then, precedes redemption in human 
experience, and we begin to enjoy everlasting life on 
occasions, being "filled with joy that is unspeakable 
and full of glory," precious foretastes of redemption 

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CHRISTIAN IDEAL 

rapture. The New testament records the fulfillment 
of Old Testament types, and prophecies of redemp- 
tion thru the sacrifice of Christ. Three words are 
used by inspired writers to set forth the meaning of 
redemption; however, the word primarily means "to 
deliver by paying a price." Agorazo, "to purchase 
in the market." The underlying thought is that of a 
slave-market, where human beings were bought and 
exchanged as chattel property. Exagerazo, "to buy 
out of the market." The redeemed are to be free 
forever and never re-sold into slavery. Lutroo, "to 
loose," "set free by paying a price." Kedemption is 
by sacrifice, and by power ; Christ paid the price and 
the Holy Spirit, by His regenerating power, makes it 
real in our experience. And thru His re-vivifying 
and quickening power He will make the life and 
power of our resurrected bodies. "But if the Spirit 
of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in 
you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also 
quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwel- 
leth in you." Ro. 8 :11. Redemption would be incom- 
plete without adoption and salvation would be un- 
finished without redemption. Salvation is only ex- 
tended to the physical side of human nature, thru 
redemption and adoption. Salvation is achieved 
when one is regenerated, and it cannot be lost nor 
forfeited, because Jesus died to redeem the body 
from the dust of the earth, and to ratify His Father 's 
elective agency, that was involved in the adoption of 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

the body into the family of God. The body is an 
orphan, without father or mother. It descended 
from an original federal head, who lost his relation- 
ship with God, and his standing as an upright being 
before Him. Our bodies are received from him in an 
alienated and degenerate condition. God, therefore 
provided adoption for the body, before it is occupied 
by a regenerated or re-born soul. The orphan that is 
adopted into the family cannot be disinherited in any 
court of law, the child born in the home may be 
legally rejected as heir, and turned away with a 
mere pittance or in a penniless condition. God 
could disinherit the soul that is born of Him and 
have legal sanction for it, because He deals with it 
upon the exclusive basis of grace ; yet He is too good 
so to disinherit it. But He would have to contravene 
His own law in order to disinherit the body of adop- 
tion, for He accepted it as an orphan outcast, friend- 
less and victimized by a wicked and carnal soul that 
dwelt in it, and forced it to submit to its despotic 
control. The body will be made perfect thru the 
quickening power of the Holy Spirit, and all traces 
of sin and disease and death will be removed from it 
— the finite becoming infinite — the mortal, im- 
mortal ; and death shall be swallowed up in victory, 
and the whole creation of God will be brought under 
the blessing of bodily and physical perfection, being 
delivered from the curse of death and suffering that 
was imposed upon it as a consequence of Adam's sin. 

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CHRISTIAN" IDEAL 

Paul says: "For I reckon that the sufferings of the 
present time are not worthy to be compared with 
the glory that shall be revealed in us. For the earn- 
est expectation of the creature waiteth for the mani- 
festation of the sons of God." Because the creature 
itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of 
corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of 
God." Ro. 8:18-21. 

"Look up, earth! no storm can last 

Beyond the limits God hath set, 
When its appointed work is past, 

In joy thou shalt thy grief forget. 
Where sorrow 's plowshare hath swept thru, 

Thy fairest flowers of life shall spring. 
For God shall grant thee life anew, 

And all thy wastes shall laugh and sing. 
Hope thou in Him; His plan for thee 

Shall end in triumph and release. 
Fear not, for thou shalt surely see 

His afterward of peace." 



231 J 



CHAPTER XI 

Heaven 

Heaven represents the highest point attained by 
transfigured thought — the farthest reach of in- 
spired imagination. Finite man, unaided by the om- 
nipotent God, could have never devised a system of 
religion that embraced within its sublimest scope 
such a place of bliss and joy and glory as the scrip- 
tures declare heaven to be. It is unthinkably gorg- 
eous, grand and magnificent. Mortality is environed 
by darkness, cursed by sin, and dwells continually 
under judgments of misery and misfortune and woe. 
Happiness ebbs and flows, feelings vacillate. The 
festival of spiritual joy is often marred by sadness 
and draped in shadows of mourning. When life 
flows like a pure river of water, clear in the reflection 
of innocence, rippling in the laughter of joy, kissed 
by the golden dawn of eternal day, and thoughts of 
Jesus and heaven thrill the soul with unstayed de- 
light, and the mind is so possessed in the grip of His 
Spirit that we are exalted in His power and trans- 
figured in His presence — the tempter obtrudes his 
unwelcome presence, casting his upas shadow o'er 
the eden of hope, and hurling his poisoned dart of 
deception, strikes unerringly the joint of our har- 
ness, bringing a sudden termination to our carnival 

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HEAVEN 

of pleasure, so that with wounded hearts and 
bruised souls we turn in penitence, seeking wearily 
the fountain of cleansing opened on Calvary for lost 
souls, and lave our soiled spirits from every stain of 
guilt and sin. We have here no continuing state of 
guiltless love. Sin is a black spot in all our feasts of 
rejoicing, and it occurs oftentimes that the radiant 
light of hope that pours its effulgent luster upon our 
stony pathway, proves to be a wandering star of 
sentimentalism, to whom the mist of doubt and the 
darkness of despair are reserved forever. "We come 
to our texts: "In my Father's house are many man- 
sions : if it were not so I would have told you. I go 
to prepare a place for you." "And if I go and pre- 
pare a place for you, I will come again and receive 
you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be 
also." 

Intermediate State of the Dead 

Heaven, as an experience, begins in this life. 
Regeneration, spiritual transformation, is the proli- 
fic spring of Christian hope and life. God brings 
heaven to us in a personal experience of it, before 
He brings us to heaven. This is evidently what Jesus 
meant, when he spoke to Nicodemus about the new 
birth, telling him that he "must be born again," and 
"except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." Unborn men have 
no innate power to receive the kingdom, nor to enter 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

into fellowship and communion with its holy nature 
and mysterious redeeming power. It is to the nat- 
ural man foolishness, an unsolved puzzle, and he can- 
not see it in the sense of comprehending its spiritual 
meaning in the higher life. Hence the only subjects 
recognized as being worthy to obtain membership in 
the Kingdom of Heaven, are "twice born" men. Ee- 
generation is the only divine method of salvation, 
and God communicates a knowledge of himself thru 
this process of spiritual change, transplanting the 
soul from a state of nature to one of grace and holi- 
ness. Hence this divine work in the heart brings to 
us an immortal hope that penetrates the veil of mys- 
tery, that envelopes us, entering the shining gates of 
glory, being lost in billows of light and refulgent 
hope that, rising in floodtides at the throne of Jeho- 
vah, burst in resplendent spray over the vast realm 
of eternity. It is needless for me to say that it is 
invariably accompanied by an inexpressible joy. 

However, the rapture of it does not always en- 
dure, but the knowledge of it permanently abides. 
Salvation, therefore, is just as enduring as the soul 
itself. If the soul perished in death, being annihi- 
lated, salvation would cease to exist. Consequently, 
it could never be restored (Heb. 6:6), because it is 
secured in this life thru one sacrifice — one divine 
oblation; and should it fall here, we could have no 
hope of future deliverance from sin, nor of our glor- 
ious uprising from the dead hereafter. Salvation is 

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HEAVEN 

eternal life, possessing the present, and having prom- 
ise of that which is to come, reaching farther and 
farther into those misty regions, sweeping past eter- 
nal landmarks, until thought fails and the soul pants 
for weariness. Salvation parallels eternity! Hence 
the soul enjoys, thru the favor of Christ, a present 
experience, peculiar to itself and separate from the 
lump of mortality that environs it. The body dies 
— dissolves — becoming unconscious, feelingless, but 
the soul never! There is but one death that it can die, 
and it must live to do that, viz : separation from God, 
who will bring upon us the interminable, indescrib- 
able vengeance of eternal fire. May God save you, 
friend, from that terrible death (Math. 25, 41, 46). 
Every careful Bible reader can very easily see the 
distinction that exists between flesh and spirit — soul 
and body. It is probable, however, that when the 
body is resurrected, many seeming contradictions 
between the soul nature and the flesh of physical 
nature, will be eliminated. Still, the resurrection 
will bring into strong contrast the finer elements of 
the blood-washed soul and the glorified body. How- 
ever, those vexatious antagonisms and inexplicable 
oppositions will be fully harmonized, and the whole 
being united in a perfected, inseparable and indivis- 
ible body, whose lustrous brightness will eclipse the 
sun, and rebuking the stars for their impertinent 
twinkling, will make them hide their faces in a veil 
of darkness. But the body in its present finite con- 

[235] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

dition is in every respect unfitted to dwell contin- 
uously, without change. It must die, returning to 
its native dust, while the soul, whose temple it is, 
inherits immortality, and enters upon an unchange- 
able state of grace and imperishable life, in contra- 
diction to its death. Thus we see, that the soul is 
destined to dwell in a separate state without the 
body, tho it is not glorified without it. Regenera- 
tion is for the soul, and resurrection for the body; 
hence the glorification of all the saved will be accom- 
plished at the second coming of Christ. "If I come 
again I will receive you unto myself." He does not 
promise to receive us in the disembodied form. He 
also told Nicodemus that "no man hath ascended up 
to heaven but He that came down from heaven, even 
the Son of Man, which is in heaven." Then where 
are the saved? "Where the lost? Do they abide in 
unconscious nonentity? What sayeth the gospel? 

"Let not your heart be troubled: Ye believe in 
God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are 
many mansions : If it were not so I would have told 
you. I go to prepare a place for you." Thinking 
people are more concerned about an unknown future, 
and really take more interest in a mysterious eter- 
nity whither we are all tending, than in the visible 
things around them. Man is a spiritual being having 
a physical nature. Paul says, "that which is first, is 
natural (and in the order of inception and develop- 
ment) that which is spiritual." In other words the 

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HEAVEN 

immortal soul of man was inbreathed — not made — 
into his physical structure, and the inbreathed soul is 
endowed with an eternal spirit thru which element of 
his nature the moral image of God is retained. Man, 
being a trinitarian in nature, naturally possesses div- 
ine inclination, and even in his fallen state entertains 
in his thought many emotions, impulses and aspira- 
tions that identify him with his Maker. All persons, 
then, are strangely moved upon by an invisible force 
that they do not understand, but that compels them 
to consider a prospective future immortality, wheth- 
er they believe in it as a fact or not. Many refuse to 
consider a future eternal state, because it is myster- 
ious, and is presented to their thought like the 
shadow of a distant cloud across the burning sands 
of the desert. But the normal man desires immortal- 
ity. I believe that the majority of lost men would 
prefer immortality with sufferings and agonies con- 
sequent upon infracted law, than to enter a state of 
nonentity, and to be eternally doomed to the dissolu- 
tion of dust, with the loss of all consciousness of God, 
and personal responsibility, and the memory of 
friends and loved ones, — in fact, the blotting out of 
all being as a personal entity. The doctrine of anni- 
hilation is contrary to the genius of human nature, 
and is an atheistic thrust at the truth that the word 
of God positively enjoins the hope of eternal life, and 
encourages all men as immortal beings to seek that 
blessed immortality that Jesus has revealed in the 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

gospel. Life here gravitates towards one of two cen- 
ters, neither of which is located in this visible sphere, 
bnt which are established as the two separate divi- 
sions of eternity. Both are places that will be occu- 
pied by human beings in a bodily form and will be 
entered after the resurrection of all the dead. Those 
places are known in the scriptures as heaven and 
hell. And for the comfort, encouragement and in- 
spiration of the believers in Christ, I will discuss 
briefly the subject that perhaps has more charm and 
alluring human and divine glory than any other sub- 
ject about which we know anything, viz : heaven. 

" Think! when our one soul understands 
The great word that makes all things new; 
"When earth breaks up and heaven expands 
How will the change strike me and you 
In the House not made with hands'?" 

Questions like the following force themselves 
upon us. " Where are the dead?" "Have they en- 
tered upon their final estate of weal or woe?" "Do 
they enter heaven or hell (I mean by hell the place 
of eternal torment, called Gehenna) at death?" It 
is evident that the dead have entered into a fixed 
state of judgment, or justification, at death, and it is 
true that we enter into those conditions prior to the 
dissolution of earth ties. Jesus says: "He that be- 
lieveth not is condemned already." And speaking 
of the saved He said: "He that believeth in the Son 
hath everlasting life. ' ' Hence death does not bring a 

[238] 



HEAVEN 

change in the nature of any person in relation to 
the obligations of law, which consist in the infliction 
of its penalties, or the elimination of those penalties 
through the atonement of Jesus. And death does not 
mean the cessation of being in this world or the next. 
Death temporarily ends physical life here, by dis- 
solving the human structure. It does nothing more, 
but as death finds us, so will we be when we appear 
in judgment. "It is appointed unto man once to die 
but after this the judgment." "As a tree falleth so 
shall it lie." But the scriptures plainly teach that 
disembodied souls do not enter into a permanent, 
final place of judgment in death. They enter those 
places "after death." Death is the gateway to the 
eternal world, that 

"Lies around us like a cloud — 
A world we do not see; 

Yet the sweet closing of an eye 
May bring us there to be." 

As there is a second and higher life for believers, 
there is also a second and deeper death for disbe- 
lievers. And as after that life there is no more 
death, so after that death there is no more life. 

' ' The sinner's doom, the sinner's doom, 
How dark the agony 
That haunts transgressors to the tomb, 
Then press on to endlessness to come, 
Whose worm may never die. ' ' 

There are two separate places as temporary 
receptacles for the accommodation of unclothed 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

spirits. The scriptures very clearly emphasize the 
glorification of the resurrected saints. Spirits of 
just men are made perfect in the intermediate state 
but never glorified out of the body. Consequently, 
bodily souls are barred from heaven. "If I come 
again I will receive you unto myself." Jesus never 
said one word that can be made to teach the com- 
monly accepted theory of an immediate entrance at 
death, upon an eternal state. 

He founded a strong hope for future deliverance 
upon the fact of His Second Coming, the blessed 
event being the only, and last, but all-sufficient hope 
of the Church. Everything depends upon it. Souls 
will remain in the separate state, and the sacred dust 
of our loved ones in the power of the grave. Nations 
will rise and fall, wars curse the earth with their 
ravages of brutality and carnage. Men will sin and 
die; injustice will wax and righteousness wane, the 
heavens retaining the sealed treasures of our divine 
heritage, until the trumpet sounds and the stars are 
swept from their billowy thrones, to make way for 
the coming of Jesus and the holy angels. Then the 
gates of the grave will be torn from their hinges, 
and the lawful captives delivered from the power of 
death, never to die while Jesus reigns. Let us watch 
and pray for His speedy return. 

I will now state clearly my position, and seek to 
prove it beyond the possibility of doubt or gainsay- 
ing: (a) The saved enter into a temporary place of 

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HEAVEN 

rest called Paradise. This place is under the throne 
of heaven, and within the bounds of heaven's atmos- 
phere, but it is not eternal as a place, nor unchange- 
able as a state of grace, because its happy subjects 
are not fully emancipated, neither can they be said 
to have triumphed completely over death, because 
their soulless bodies are mouldering in the grave. 
None but the perfected, the glorified, the resurrected 
can enter the pearly Gate of the New Jerusalem. 

"0 holy dwelling place of God! 
Oh, glorious city all divine! 
Thy streets, by feet of seraphs trod, 
Shall one glad day be trod by mine. ' ? 

Paradise is, according to the plain unequivocal 
statement of Christ, in Hades, that in nearly every 
instance is incorrectly translated by our English word 
Hell, and meaning eternal torment, in our Author- 
ized Version of the scriptures. Liddell and Scott de- 
fines it to mean "death, the grave," or the "unseen 
world." It does not necessarily convey the idea of 
future punishment, tho having an indefinite meaning, 
and comprehending in its wide domain, the whole of 
the invisible universe. Of course, awful destruction 
and likewise eternal happiness are included in its 
etymology, but only in the sense of being future. 
Men are not suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, 
nor are they enjoying the full fruition of the Chris- 
tian hope at the present time. Jesus spoke of the 
Rich Man and Lazarus being in Hades, (Luke 16 :23) 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

the latter suffering, being tormented, the former en- 
joying a larger portion of joy and life and prosperity 
than he had ever dreamed of in this world. But 
these two are widely separated by a "gulf fixed" and 
impassable. Lazarus is in paradise, and the Rich 
Man in Tartarus, the two receptacles or divisions of 
Hades. The word Tartarus is used by Peter (2 Pet. 
2:4), when he is speaking of the fall and ruin of 
rebellious angels. He calls it an "abyss or prison 
house," its miserable inhabitants being "reserved in 
chains of darkness awaiting the judgment of the 
great day." This, however, is only a temporary 
place, its subjects destined to perish eternally in "a 
devil's hell." Sodomites, lost Ante-diluvians and the 
Christless dead of all ages are there, awaiting the 
final decree of judgment, after which in their resur- 
rected bodies they will be "turned into hell with the 
nations that forget God." "We are therefore ex- 
horted by Christ to be faithful and fearless in his 
service : "And fear not them which kill the body, but 
are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him 
that is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." 
Math. 10:28. 

Christ entered Paradise at death and remained 
there during the interval between His death and re- 
surrection. This is evident, judging from his lan- 
guage to Mary, who was in the act of touching him 
at the tomb. He said to her: "Touch me not, for I 
am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my 

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HEAVEN 

brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father 
and your Father; and to my God and your God." 
Jno. 20:17. 

Thus, the following facts are self -manifest, viz: 
(a) Christ at death did not ascend to His Father, (b) 
He went in company with the penitent thief (Lu. 
23:43) to Paradise and (c) we conclude that Para- 
dise is not Heaven, because God's throne is there, 
and it is also his dwelling place. David teaches this 
theory in many of his Psalms, but one quotation from 
him, cited by Peter, is sufficient for our present pur- 
pose. Speaking of the death of Christ, accomplished 
in conformity to the pre-determination of God, he 
said: "For David speaketh concerning him, I fore- 
saw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my 
right hand that I should not be moved: Therefore 
did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad ; more- 
over also my flesh shall rest in hope; because thou 
wilt not leave my soul in hell (Hades) neither wilt 
thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." Acts. 
2:25-27. The physical structure of Christ was sin- 
less, therefore incorruptible. During its confinement 
in "Joseph's new tomb" it was miraculously pre- 
served, the ravages of decay being stayed, and the 
power of the Holy Spirit over-shadowing it contin- 
ually. But the divine nature was absent, in the 
separate state with the righteous dead, the exper- 
ience "thou wilt not leave my soul in hell" (Hades) 
referring to his sojourn in the mysterious land of 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

' ' spirits of just men made perfect. ' ' The term Para- 
dise (Phulake) is used three times in the holy scrip- 
tures. Heaven and Paradise are never used synon- 
omously by any New Testament writer. The passage 
in Luke has already been quoted and we will intro- 
duce the two remaining passages. Paul uses one of 
them, when speaking of "visions and revelations of 
the Lord ' ' that had been accorded him. He says : " It 
is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will 
come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew 
a man in Christ about fourteen years ago, whether 
out of the body I cannot tell ; God knoweth : how 
that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard un- 
speakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to 
utter." 2 Cor. 12:1-4. I am aware that it is com- 
monly held by many that Paradise and Heaven are 
the same place, and that there is no middle life. The 
misapprehension of the class referred to arises from 
supposing that Paul in these four verses refers to 
the self-same event, and that he had but one revela- 
tion. But he expressly declares in the first verse 
that he had visions (plural) and revelations, which 
he would proceed to relate. In the beginning of the 
narration he informs them of the fact that he was 
unconscious of his true state, hence he could not tell 
whether he was in the body or out of it. However, 
he was consciously alive, and cognizant of his mys- 
terious surroundings. He went to the "third Hea- 
ven" but did not mention anything that he saw in 

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HEAVEN 

that celestial city. With the bare mention of the 
fact that he saw it, was in it, and lost for the time 
being in its luxurious glory and drunk with its 
ecstatic delights, he lets the curtain of silence fall 
upon the gorgeous scene. Then he speaks of Para- 
dise. He saw many things that it was not lawful for 
him to utter. He manifests a spirit of careful reserve 
as he proceeds with his meager description of the 
place. But it is clear from his language that the 
place is not inhabited at present by those persons 
who received their bodies thru translation or resur- 
rection in the past nor by disembodied souls. So 
far as we can gather from the descriptions that we 
have on record, in the writings of Paul, John, et al, 
its only occupants are the Three Persons composing 
the holy Trinity and guardian angels, that keep vigil 
with drawn swords at its pearly gates continually. 

"In thee no temple lifts its dome, 
No sun its radiant beam lets fall; 
For there — of like the eternal home — 
God and the lamb illumine all! 

The enraptured John triumphantly exclaims: 
"And I saw no temple therein: For the Lord God 
Almighty and the lamb are the temple of it. And the 
city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to 
shine in it : For the glory of God did lighten it and 
the lamb is the light thereof. 

The allusion here cannot be misunderstood. In 
the holy of holies of the earthly Jerusalem, there was 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

neither natural nor artificial light : No golden lamp 
shown within its walls, and not a ray of light could 
enter there; nor was there need for them, for that 
sacred place was illumined by the glory of the Shek- 
inah, which occasionly filled the temple with super- 
natural brightness, and shown forth to the view of 
the joyful worshippers without. The earthly Shek- 
inah was a symbol of the eternal sanctuary, where 
God and the lamb dwell and which needs not the 
light of sun, moon or stars, to furnish them light, for 
they furnish illumination for all the city, that shines 
resplendent thruout vast eternity in their own lus- 
trous and uneclipsed personality. Another very im- 
portant passage is found in Revelations, second chap- 
ter and seventh verse. It reads: ''To him that over- 
cometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, 
which is in the Paradise of God." (R. V.). 

This is a highly figurative passage, and calls to 
mind the dark tragedy of the world 's first Paradise that 
our First Adam lost thru disobedience ; but it rings 
the note of hope clear and strong, for the encourage- 
ment of the returning prodigal. Jesus is "the tree of 
life. " He is omnipresent filling all space and is aces- 
sible to a penitent believer from every quarter of the 
globe. There can be no Paradise where Jesus is not, 
but the humblest home of the poorest Lazarus is 
heaven with him dwelling midst its poverty and 
want. Christ, as "the tree of life," dwells in the 
midst of heaven, in the midst of earth, and in the 

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HEAVEN 

midst of that happy place where multitudes of the 
blood-washed subjects of grace await His coming 
and the redemption of their bodies from the grave, — 
the Eden of joy that is known in the scriptures as 
"the Paradise of God." 

Plurality of Heaven 

Heaven is unquestionably a place and not a 
mere state of spiritual happiness. This were essen- 
tial to the prosperity of the redeemed and the suc- 
cess of the Christian enterprise, because man cannot 
conceive of peace and safety apart from a local en- 
vironment, and would not be able to appreciate it 
if we could do so. We are social, clannish creatures. 
Our hearts crave the fellowship of our kind, and our 
nature demands for its satisfaction and contentment 
the association of congenial spirits. Heaven is the only 
place in the vast eternity of God that fully supplies 
the wants and cravings and desires of glorified hum- 
an nature. Christ said, "In my Father's house are 
many mansions," thus emphasizing the homelike 
features of the celestial city. Some man will ask, 
"Where is heaven?" We cannot answer that ques- 
tion accurately. According to the scriptures it is 
above us. As to its exact location the scriptures are 
silent. But the prayers of the faithful in all ages 
have been ever directed UPWARD. 

Thus "Solomon stood before the altar of the 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, 
and spread forth his hands toward heaven," show- 
ing that he believed that it was above him. David 
also recognized the fact that heaven was above the 
earth. Bnt this point is really immaterial, hence I 
will not consume any more time in discussing it. 
Suffice it to say, however, that HEAVEN IS WHERE 
CHRIST IS. I would rather live in hell with Christ, 
than to dwell in heaven without him! I remember 
having read an incident related by Mr. Moody that 
illustrates the point under consideration. A lady 
in a northern city was "sick nigh unto death." It 
was decided, therefore, to remove her to the home of 
an aunt that lived in a distant city. The little girl 
was dissatisfied, and kept wanting to see her mama. 
In the course of time the mother died, but the child 
could not realize the meaning of death. She became 
frantic and grief -stricken. She could not be recon- 
ciled to her surroundings. The good, kind aunt was 
not "mother." It was decided finally to take her 
back home. She went thru all the rooms, calling 
plaintively: "Mama! Oh, Mama!" No answer came. 
Failing to find her mother, she said to her aunt, 
' ' Let 's go ; mama is gone ! " It was not home to 
her now that the chief attraction — the light 
— mother — had departed. Thus, to a Christian 
anywhere is heaven with Jesus. The scriptures re- 
cognize three heavens. First the region of the air 
thru which the birds fly; second, the firmament 

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HEAVEN 

above the clouds in which the sun and moon and 
stars are fixed ; third, the third heaven, the high and 
holy place of which the Jewish holy of holies was a 
type, the place of God's special abode, the "center 
and metropolis of the universe, in which the omni- 
potent Deity affords a nearer and more sensible man- 
ifestation of his glory than in the other parts of the 
divine kingdom." God reigns there, in the perfec- 
tion of his infinite holiness, clad with ineffable glory 
and insufferable light, which no imperfect being can 
see, or approach and live. Were a disembodied spirit 
to elude the angel that guards the gates of paradise 
and loose its way among the star-decked paths of 
eternity and wander up to His throne, it would per- 
ish eternally, finding for a winding sheet the glory of 
His presence, and for a grave, the magnificent scenes 
of the holy city. But such a calamnity cannot happen, 
because Jesus has locked the joy-gates of Paradise 
with the key of predestination, and those "prisoners 
of hope" are secured in the flower gardens of de- 
light, and He will not permit them to escape nor give 
those happy captives freedom, until the time is ful- 
filled for his return to the kingdom, and the clarion 
tones of the trumpet rings forth the thrilling message 
of complete redemption. Then the emancipated 
hosts of God shall possess the earth and Jesus shall 
reign Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Thank GFod 
for the glorious prospect ! 

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CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

Heavenly Eecognition 

This life is a prophecy — a forecast of that 
which is to come. The material universe is a shadow 
of things that are destined to appear at some future 
time. We are developing into a stereotyped and 
fixed character in this world, everything about us 
in reality contributing to that one grand aim and 
purpose of our existence ; but still, we must pass into 
another sphere of existence before the real object and 
true characer is attained. In this mortal sphere we 
change, decay like the forest. The strength of man- 
hood fails, and the beauty and charms of womanhood 
wane and perish like the flowers of the field, and like 
the beast of the earth all must die, and become food 
for worms. This mortal, thru this method of the div- 
ine procedure, must put on immortality. Now, the 
question presses heavily upon many minds, will these 
changes so far affect the identity of the individual, 
as to render us unrecognizable in the next life ? Or 
will we know each other in Heaven? If so, will there 
be recognition of each other in the place of torment? 
These are very perplexing questions, and perhaps 
they are a more common source of anxiety and con- 
fusion than any other themes or theories of teachings 
in the Bible. But I am confident that we will know 
each other in the eternal world. Death does not des- 
troy the identity of the individual. There is a dead 
prince in King David's palace. Disease that stalks 
up the lane of the poor and poverty-stricken, putting 

[250] 



HEAVEN 

his cold hand on the lips of the wan and feeble, 
mounts the palace stairs and blows the frost of death 
in Bathsheba's child's face. Tears are wine to the 
king of terrors. Wailing and lamentations, dismal 
and heartrending, ring thru the palace. But David 
puts away the drapery of mourning, and cheers his 
heart in the prospect of a future meeting with the 
child in Paradise. He said, "He cannot come to me, 
but I can go to him." He certainly believed that he 
would know the child in a separate state. The scrip- 
tures certainly teach the identity of the soul in Para- 
dise. What comfort would it have been to David to 
meet the child anywhere in the universe of God, and 
not recognize him? What consolation would it be to 
any of us to know that we were in the company of 
loved ones, and not be able to distinguish between 
them? Heaven, it seems to me, would be a very 
lonesome place were we to be strangers to each other 
there. Then we would have less sense and know- 
ledge in that place, the sanctuary of eternal wisdom, 
than we possessed on earth. 

Shakespeare said: There is nothing in a name; 
a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. 
But that sentiment is the logic of folly, if there can 
be such a thing. It is true that a rose would smell 
just as sweet with another name, but the name is so 
closely connected with the plant that bears it as to 
be inseparably identified. Our names, says Jesus, are 
"written in heaven." Then, will we not hear them 

[251] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

there ? If the names of the faithful are not preserved 
for us, for whom are they kept? Certainly they are 
not for the Lord, because he hath all wisdom, and 
does not heed a written record of any event, occur- 
rence, tragedy, date or name of anything, or any 
creature in heaven, or earth, to help him remember 
it. He cannot forget only in the sense that he 
chooses not to punish penitents for their evil deeds. 
Hence, I believe that we will have our present names 
in heaven, and that we will know each other in that 
celestial city. Dives knew Lazarus in Paradise, and 
asked for assistance, showing very clearly that two 
things were true of all who enter the abode of spirits, 
viz: (a) They have their creature wants and (b) 
they recognize each other in these widely separated 
places. The rich man knew Abraham, whom he had 
never seen, and called him father. He also remem- 
bered his brethren in this world, which is a very 
satisfactory proof to my mind that men in that place 
of darkness know each other, because the rich man 
missed his five brothers, and knew that they were 
not present among the black throngs of miserable 
creatures that wait in chains of darkness for the 
judgment of the great day. I am sure you remember 
what Peter and John said to Christ in the mount of 
Transfiguration. They requested Jesus to allow 
them to erect booths, "one for Moses and one for 
Elias." Moses and Elijah had been dead for many 
years. Neither Peter, James nor John had ever 

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HEAVEN 

seen nor had they ever looked upon any picture or 
likeness of these great men. Moses evidently repres- 
ented the resurrected state of the church, while 
Elijah represented the translated church. Peter 
knew Moses from Elijah, and so did James and John. 
Will they not know these notable worthies in the 
glory-world, and may we not joyfully expect to do 
so, too? Will heaven be all glitter, and gold, and 
glare, with no distinctions in rank and personality, 
variety and appearance? No! A THOUSAND 
TIMES NO! I do not believe heaven will represent 
monotony nor humdrum commonality. Neither is it 
a sort of dead level. There are abodes there. Ranks 
of angels there. Persons that made history charming 
by their patriotic devotion to Christ, and gave Chris- 
tianity a triumphant prospect in this life. They are 
not destined therefore to be buried, lost to acquain- 
tances and relatives in heaven. Jesus specially 
stresses this glorious truth, and offers it as an induce- 
ment to the lost to seek heaven, viz: "They shall 
come from the east and from the west and shall sit 
down in the kingdom of heaven, with Abraham and 
Isaac and Jacob." If men do not know one from 
another, why mention the fact that Abraham and 
Isaac and Jacob will be present at the great feast of 
joy, when the banquet chambers are opened to the 
redeemed and glorified? 

Suppose you were invited to attend a banquet 
at New Orleans, and as an inducement to secure your 

[253] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

attendance it was announced that President Wilson 
and Wm. J Bryan and Ex. Gov. Hughes and Senator 
Lodge, with many other great men from different 
parts of the world would be present. You have 
never met any one of them, and never saw a picture 
nor read a description of their personal appearance. 
You sit down to the banquet feeling like a dunce. 
You do not know Bryan from Wilson nor Hughes 
from Lodge. Then to carry the thought further, say 
that these men are unknown to each other. Would 
that be a very delightful occasion? Do you think 
that you would enjoy the evening? Nothing could 
be more preposterous and absurd. I believe that we 
will, thru the bestowment of divine knowledge to 
each separately and by name, the earth name, know 
every glorified person in Heaven. But some one will 
say: "I am sure that many of my relatives are lost, 
and if I should see, and know my unsaved children I 
could not enjoy Heaven." My dear friend, let me 
reason with you upon that subject for a few mom- 
ents. You are sincere, but you have failed to con- 
sider two very important truths in relation to this 
question. (a) Christ changes the genealogy of 
human nature and transfers its source and origin 
from the First Adam, to himself, the Second Adam. 
Hence the saved represent a new generation of men. 
They are made of one blood, the royal crimson of 
heaven, and they never die in the sense of torment. 
Those in the First Adam, do perish eternally and in 

[254] 



HEAVEN 

their own separate blood and individuality, perishing 
in their sins; their carnal natures, remaining un- 
changed, except to grow worse. But the saved will 
leave their carnal natures behind in the grave, and 
we will not know each other after the flesh, or in 
relation to carnality, but after the spirit, or in the 
same sense in which we know Christ. We do not 
know Him after the flesh at present, and we shall be 
"made like him, for we shall see Him as he is." 
Thus we have the same physical structure, but sin 
will not be identified with it, hence there will be no 
weddings in heaven, except that of Christ and the 
Church, but we shall be as the angels of God that 
never marry. Therefore, we will not have the power 
to mourn and lament in heaven, because our relations 
to each other will not be affected by the flesh, or 
carnality. The lost will be to us as a separate and 
unknown generation too. Thank God He will brush 
the tears from our cheeks and fill us with laughter 
and unceasing delight ! 

"Oh, angel, lend me the shade of thy wing; 
I see the portals of light unrolled, 
With songs of welcome their arches ring — 
The ransomed are safe in their heavenly fold. ' ' 

I commend the beautiful statement of Bishop 
Norris to all thoughtful persons, viz: "The joys of 
heaven are without example, above experience, and 
beyond imagination, — for which the whole creation 
wants a comparison; we, an apprehension; and even 

[255] 



CHRIST TRIUMPHANT 

the word of God, a revelation. ' ' The glory of heaven 
is indescribable, and its joys are unspeakable. And 
best of all, there is no death in heaven. It is life and 
life forever — eternal life. Life is glorious tho it be 
just for a moment — but who can measure, fathom, or 
weigh the period of its duration? Lift your scales 
and it is eternal life. Go to eternity's chronometer, 
and mark the flight of cycles infinite, and count the 
vibrations of its pendulum, ever going and coming; 
count the strokes of its sounding bell, dying away in 
music midst the flowery hills of heaven, each repeat- 
ing in its last dying murmur, Forever! Forever! when 
the chronicler of revolving cycles reveals the history 
of his records it will be, (< forever! forever!" Life is 
heaven, and eternity is the period of its enjoyment. 



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